In those days every student had his guitar or other musical instrument wherewith to serenade his "Liebchen" or lady-love, for that latter article was indispensable to the life of a student, and though much grossness and barbarity has been attributed to him, he is, nevertheless, at times capable of being elevated by a pure and refined passion, for he has much poetry in his nature, and is both sentimental and romantic in the extreme. In all ages students have meddled much in politics, and princes have been known to tremble before their audacity and resolution. But enough of this digression, gentlemen. My present tale demands only that you should call up in your minds the German student on his foot tour in the long vacation, with his keen relish of the beautiful, his lusty and well-trained frame that laughs at fatigue, his love of good-fellowship, his tender thoughts of home with the image of his lady-love. "Which pined although it spoke not, and grew keen, Entering with every step it took through many a scene." --BYRON.[2] I must now return to my ancestor, who at the time this story commences was on one of these pedestrian rambles, accompanied by some twenty of his fellow students, all stout, hearty youths who could eat, drink, and fight with any in the university, and flirt, too, I've no doubt, when occasion tempted them. These attributes, you will say, are not strictly necessary to the student preparing for honours, yet, nevertheless, somehow German students manage to find time for other amusements besides dry study. They _can_ play, but when they _do_ study, they study hard. My ancestor at the time I speak of was a young man of about twenty, and had already been two years at the university. We may presume, therefore, that he spoke German tolerably well, if not well. I believe it was in the Harz mountains, the Thueringer Wald, and about those parts that he was travelling on foot with his friends. They rose at daybreak and walked hard, with their knapsacks on their backs, singing or conversing as they went, reposing at noon in some shady spot to avoid the heat of the day. When the sun began to abate a little they would resume their journey till night overshadowed them, when they would encamp, as hungry as hunters, in some rude quarters, where they would make merry together over a simple but plentiful supper, and talk over the fatigues of the day. They had been following this sort of life for some time, when one evening as they were hastening towards their quarters in groups of twos, threes, and fours, my ancestor asked of his friend, "What is the name of the township where we are to sleep to-night, Hans?" "----dorf," answered his friend; "but we shall have to hasten in order to reach it before nightfall. Look, how the mist is rising!" "Ah! so it is," replied my relative, whose name was Frederick, but who was never called otherwise than "Fritz" by his companions.