I said them again; and Heaven knows I needed them more than any prince trapped in the ogre's castle of a fairy tale. CHAPTER VIII THE HUNTING-SONG Scarcely had Joubert left me than a faint sound, stealing from below, made me sit up in bed. The sound of violins tuning up. Ever since I could perceive the difference between musical sounds, music has fascinated me, thrilled me, filled me with hauntings. Music can make me drunk, music can make me everything but bad; but it is not in the province of music to do that. A band of wandering musicians had come to the schloss, and were preparing to entertain the guests in the great hall. Our rooms were quite close to the gallery surrounding the hall. I could hear the complaint of the violin-strings protesting their readiness, and the deep, gasping grunts of the 'cello saying as plainly as a 'cello could speak, "Begin." Then the music struck up. A gay, dashing tune, vivid as a spring landscape with the daffodils dancing in the wind; the high tremulous notes of a piccolo hovering over the music of the strings as a skylark hovers in the air. It was more than mortal child could stand, to hear all that and not to be there. I hopped out of bed, and made for the door. I had opened it, when the thought came to me that Joubert might come back to the room, as he sometimes did, to see if I were asleep; so I ran to the bed and propped the pillow under the bedclothes. I often slept with the clothes over my head, and the room was so dark that the protuberance of the pillow gave quite a striking representation of a small boy curled up in slumber. Then I came down the passage to the gallery overlooking the hall. Down below the place was brilliantly lit. The musicians--four men in long coats, with long hair, and two of them bearded--were opposite to me. Seated about were the guests: my father, the Countess Feliciani, Count Feliciani, Major von der Goltz, General Hahn, and another gentleman whose name I did not know. Baron von Lichtenberg was not there. A servant was handing coffee, and the guests were chatting in two little groups, and seemed quite oblivious of the music that was ravishing my simple heart. The spring song ceased, the daffodils danced no longer in the wind, the skylark dropped from the sky, and the musicians fell chatting one to the other in an undertone whilst they tuned up again. The one most directly facing me--a man quite young, with oh, such a good, kind, sweet face!--glanced up as he was raising his violin and caught sight of me in my little nightshirt away up in the gallery peeping down at him and his brethren. He evidently knew at once that I was one of the children of the schloss, a truant from bed, and that my portion would be smacks if I were discovered; for, though a momentary smile lit his face, he made no sign or attempt to point me out to his fellows.