To have been stuck a whole hour upon a stone, while a postilion ranged the country on horseback in one direction, and a valet a-foot in the other, and no help as yet forthcoming; not to have had himself within hail, all those weary minutes, one single human being—between intervals of drowsiness he cursed the peaceful valley land, with its fair fields and orchards, as the most God-forsaken of countries!
Presently his moody eye quickened. On the road below a moving object was approaching. Only a pedestrian, alas! Nevertheless, he might prove of use for succour or advice.
But, as the oncomer drew nearer and began to foot the ascent, the glimmer of hope died in the discontented gentleman's heart. Here was no sturdy native, likely guide to smithy or village inn. 'Twas a mere ambulant musician, as strange, doubtless, to the country as himself: the sun-rays were even now glinting back, roseate, from the varnish of a fiddle.—The traveller relapsed into moodiness.
But, as the oncomer drew nearer, the glimmer of hope died in the discontented gentleman's heart.
At the steep curve of the hillside, man and fiddle vanished from view. Nevertheless, that he was still climbing, the advance (in interrupted measure) of a singular little tune, half sourdine, half pizzicato, soon proclaimed. It seemed at first so woven in with the babble of the brook, the deep choiring of the forest and the song of the robin, that the youth on the milestone hardly realized its separate existence. But, as it hovered ever closer, he was forced to listen and even to follow. It seemed the very song of the rover; of the rover on foot, humble and yet proud; without a penny, without a bond; glad of the free water to drink and the hunk of bread by the roadside—a song of the nodding grass and the bird in the hedge, of the dancing leaf, the darting swallow, the wide kindly skies. Oh, the road is full of gay things, and tender things, of sweetness and refreshment, of wholesome fatigue and glorious sleep, for those that know its secrets!
"Good evening to you, young sir."
The little tune had stopped. A man's figure, exaggeratedly thin, black against the sunset, had emerged over the knuckle of the hill and, with a wide sweep of the arm, was saluting.
The gesture of the black silhouette seemed so courtly, the voice that came from it so refined, that the young gentleman almost rose to return the salutation: but, in time, he caught sight of the violin curves.... Pooh, it was the fiddling vagabond! Ashamed of his impulse, he drew forth a florin and flung it.
The musician skipped nimbly on one side; the coin fell, flashing in the red sun-shafts. He looked from it to the imperious donor, whose face he scanned keenly for a moment, then smiled; and his teeth shone as white as a wolf's in the deep tan of his face. Then off went his battered hat again and out was stretched a sinewy leg in dusty blue stocking, to accompany a bow such as twenty years ago might have roused the envy of your finest Versailles marquis.