THE YOUNG ARTIST.
CHAPTER I.
THE GUARDIAN ANGEL AND THE SPIRIT OF MUSIC.
"Like rainbows o'er a cataract, Music's tones
Played round the dazzling spirit."
The evening bells were loudly ringing in the little town of Geremberg. Troops of busy workmen were hastening home from the neighboring fields and gardens, while children, with merry shouts, were driving herds of cattle, droves of sheep, and domestic poultry, and their clear and joyous laughter might be heard far above the lowing of the weary cows, or the shrill hissing and cackling of the numberless flocks of noisy ducks and geese. The barking of dogs, with the hoarse oaths and gruff voices of the drovers, added to the general din. Wagons heavily laden with provisions; drawn sometimes by four, sometimes by six horses, rolled wearily along, but the pleasant anticipation of rest at the neighboring inn, and the recollection of its well-filled crib, urged the exhausted steeds to new efforts of their almost failing strength. The lighter farm-carts, full of sweet hay or perfumed clover, upon which lay the rosy-cheeked farm-boys almost buried in their beds of fragrance, easily passed these lumbering trains. With his coarse boots fastened to the dusty wallet which hung upon his back, and his feet wrapped round with bloody bands of dusty linen, the tired wanderer limped painfully on, carefully selecting the grass which grew along the edge of the footpath, because its fresh and dewy growth soothed and cooled the burning of his blistered and wounded feet.
All were seeking the same goal, all moving towards the little town from whose glimmering windows the hospitable lights already began to gleam through the deepening twilight, although a rosy and still glowing pile of clouds on the verge of the western horizon yet waved a farewell greeting from the parting sun.
The highways were soon deserted, and the whole neighborhood was quiet. Only a solitary woman was now to be seen slowly moving along the pathway; she seemed very much tired, and, seating herself upon the ground, she took a heavy basket from her back, and carefully unbound the cloth which was knotted over it. She then looked cautiously around her in every direction; scarcely breathing, in the earnestness of her search, no nook or corner escaped the prying eagerness of her gaze. A dead silence reigned around, only broken by a confused murmur from the town and the distant barking of dogs. Twilight was entirely over, and a few stars only twinkled in the skies. The woman then rose from the ground, carefully hid her basket in a little ditch, after having taken a thickly veiled object from it, which she carried in her arms to a thicket of hazel-bushes, which separated a piece of meadow ground from a field newly ploughed. She laid the veiled object softly down in the high grass, and was hastening rapidly away, when the screams of a child were heard proceeding from the hazel-bushes. Without once looking behind her, the woman continued to hurry on, but the screams of the child grew louder and louder, and forced her, however reluctant she might be, to return. With her hand threateningly raised over the child, and her voice full of stifled rage, she cried,—