"I know not what fancy has to do with it," replied the other, gravely; "methinks never was there a congregation of more beautiful objects presented to the eye of man. Nature does everything here, William, we have no need of fancy. Look at that town, that castle, those lordly mountains, those green waving woods, the river gliding----"
"Like a golden lizard, you would say, amongst the stones," rejoined his companion, interrupting him. "In pity let us have some figure of speech to show that your admiration has not at least benumbed imagination. A simile, a trope, a metaphor, even a hyperbole will do. Can you not call them godlike towers? or figure me the mountains as giant Titans, with a bushy beard of oaks and beeches? What has become of all your flowers of rhetoric? You will never be able to keep pace with the doctors and poets of the university, if you go on in this dull style. Or is it that you have expended all the riches of your poesy upon the fair dames you left behind in Italy, and have not got a beggarly tester of fine words for the fair town of Heidelberg? or, again, are you afraid of the exchequer running low, and are hoarding your smart speeches with miserly avarice, to let love, like the miser's son, squander them by-and-by upon the lovely dames of the Electoral court?"
"Good faith!" replied the other, "I doubt much, my friend, whether I shall see anything in any court so lovely to my eyes as that fair range of mountains, out there upon the right, looking like sapphires on a sky of gold."
"Improved! improved!" cried his companion, dropping his rein and clapping his hands; "those sapphires and that gold come out most splendidly. The poor Haardt, with her stony rocks, would be grateful to you, doubtless, for thus enriching her; but let us on, I am for living loveliness. Of all the landscapes I ever saw, the most beautiful has been a rosy cheek and alabaster throat; the brightest waters in the world for me, lie in the deep well of a dark blue eye; and in all the sun-rises or sunsets that ever covered the sky with crimson, there is nothing like the warm blush upon a young face, or the dawning smile upon a rosy lip. Let us on, let us on, I say; pleasure is the pursuit of life; let grave thoughts follow us, they will catch us soon enough if we do not make haste and get before them."
"'Twere a good philosophy, could it but last," answered his companion, with a smile, touching his horse gently with the spur, and in a moment more they were winding on by the side of the Neckar towards the old bridge, which, like many another building there, was not destined to see the present day.
Perhaps the younger of the two travellers felt that his companion was right in what he had said regarding the ornamental powers of fancy, when they passed the gates of Heidelberg and entered the town itself. The sunshiny splendour of the valley was lost in the narrow streets and tall dark houses; but still the shade was pleasant, for the evening was hot; and there was something in the long lines of the quaint, many-storied buildings, with their ornamented gables to the streets and every here and there a gleam of sunshine breaking across through an aperture--something in the gay crowds of people, in the ringing laugh and cheerful buzz, even in the baskets of fruits and flowers that obstructed every turning, which did much with a young and enthusiastic mind, to compensate for the picturesque beauty of the valley which they no longer beheld; and still, at the end of many of the streets, the towers and walls of the castle were seen looking down from its proud rock, with the green branches and rugged crags of the mountain, towering up beyond.
"In the name of all that's sweet and savoury, let us get to our inn as fast as we can," said the elder of the young men. "My ears are cracked with the hoarse merriment of these overjoyous German throats; and my nose feels feverish with all the vapours of garlic and sauerkraut which it has imbibed since we passed the gates.--What is the name of the inn, Tony?" he continued, turning his head to one of the servants behind, a merry-looking fellow, with a good deal of shrewd humour in his countenance.
"The Golden something, Sir William," replied the man; "but, by my faith, I forget what. We have passed through so many golden and silver vessels within the last month, that I am quite confounded by them. We rode upon a golden goose last night; the day before it was a silver moon; then we have had the cock of gold, the golden pitcher, the golden crown, the silver cross, the silver staff, and the silver star. We have had all sorts of fishes that ever swam in the sea, and all the beasts that ever went into the ark, besides a number of monsters."
"Hush, sir, hush; give me a reasonable answer, and a short one," replied the gentleman; "and remember what your master told you, about forgetting our names till you are permitted to remember them.--What was the name of the inn, I say?"
"It was the Golden something, sir," replied the man, undismayed; "and, if I must give it a name when I don't recollect the right one, I'll give it the name of the Stag, by way of a change. We have not been at a Stag for a week at least."