It is the hour before the labouring bee has left his golden hive; not yet the blooming day buds in the blushing East; not yet has the victorious Lucifer chased from the early sky the fainting splendour of the stars of night. All is silent, save the light breath of morn waking the slumbering leaves. Even now a golden streak breaks over the grey mountains. Hark to shrill chanticleer! As the cock crows the owl ceases. Hark to shrill chanticleer’s feathered rival! The mountain lark springs from the sullen earth, and welcomes with his hymn the coming day. The golden streak has expanded into a crimson crescent, and rays of living fire flame over the rose-enamelled East. Man rises sooner than the sun, and already sound the whistle of the ploughman, the song of the mower, and the forge of the smith; and hark to the bugle of the hunter, and the baying of his deep-mouthed hound. The sun is up, the generating sun! and temple, and tower, and tree, the massy wood, and the broad field, and the distant hill, burst into sudden light; quickly upcurled is the dusky mist from the shining river; quickly is the cold dew drunk from the raised heads of the drooping flowers! A canter by a somewhat clearer light than the one which had so unfortunately guided himself and his companion to the Palace of the Wines soon carried them again to the skirts of the forest, and at this minute they are emerging on the plain from yonder dark wood. “By heavens! Essper, I cannot reach the town this morning. Was ever anything more unfortunate. A curse on those drunken fools. What with no rest and no solid refreshment, and the rivers of hock that are flowing within me, and the infernal exertion of running round that vile hall, I feel fairly exhausted, and could at this moment fall from my saddle. See you no habitation, my good fellow, where there might be a chance of a breakfast and a few hours’ rest? We are now well out of the forest. Oh! surely there is smoke from behind those pines; some good wife, I trust, is by her chimney corner.” “If my sense be not destroyed by the fumes of that mulled Geisenheim, which still haunts me, I could swear that the smoke is the soul of a burning weed.” “A truce to your jokes, good Essper; I really am very ill. A year ago I could have laughed at our misfortunes, but now it is very different; and, by heavens, I must have breakfast! so stir, exert yourself, and, although I die for it, let us canter up to the smoke.” “No, dear master, I will ride on before. Do you follow gently, and if there be a pigeon in the pot in all Germany. I swear by the patron saint of every village for fifty miles round, provided they be not heretics, that you shall taste of its breast-bone this morning.” The smoke did issue from a chimney, but the door of the cottage was shut. “Hilloa, within!” shouted Essper; “who shuts the sun out on a September morning?”