The matter was speedily explained; the three travellers expressed much pleasure at meeting us, and pressed us so cordially to join their party, and stay the night with them, that we at length acceded to their request.
One of the officer's companions was a young, handsome, and very fashionable-looking man; he was extremely rich, we understood, therefore they called him the merchant, and they would not tell us his name, or if that were his real position in society. The other introduced himself to us with these words:
'Gentlemen, of the respectable peasant class! my name here in Jutland is Farniente. My agreeable occupation is to do nothing--at least nothing but amuse myself.'
There was a great deal more joking among our hosts, and then we presented each other in the same bantering way, after which we all adjourned to the tent, where we wound up with a very jovial supper. At midnight the merchant reminded us that we had to rise next morning with the first rays of the sun, and that it was time to retire to rest. We made up a sort of couch, with cushions and cloaks, and on it we five faithful brothers stretched ourselves as best we might. The other four soon fell asleep. I alone remained awake; and when I found that slumber had fled my pillow, rose as quietly as possible, and left the tent.
All around was still as the grave. The skies were without a cloud, but of their millions of eyes only a few were now open, and even these shone dimly and feebly, as if they were almost overcome by sleep. The monarch of light, who was soon to overpower their fading brightness, was already clearing his path in the north-east. It is not the darkness, still less the tempest, that renders night so extremely melancholy; it is that deep repose, that corpse-like stillness in nature; it is to see oneself the only waking being in a sleeping world--one living amidst the vast vaults of the grave--a creature trembling with the fearful, giddy thought of death and eternity. How welcome then is any sound which breaks the oppressive silence of that nocturnal solitude, and reminds us that human beings are about to awaken to their daily round of occupation and pleasure--and, it must be added, of anxiety and trouble! How cheerful seems the earliest crowing of the cocks from the nearest huts, rising almost lazily on the dusky air! The drowsy world was beginning to move; and after a time I discerned faint, sweet tones proceeding from the direction of the wood. I listened attentively, and soon became convinced that it was music--the music of wind instruments--which I heard. To me music is as welcome as the first rosy streaks of morn to the benighted wanderer, or a glimpse of the brilliant sun amidst the gloom of a dark wintry sky.
The sweet sounds ceased, and I began to ponder whether it might not have been unearthly strains which I had heard--whether they might not have come from the fairies who perhaps dwell amidst the surrounding glades, or among the wild flowers that enamelled the sloping sides of the hills. The music, however, was certainly Weber's, and the question was, whether the elfin people had learned the airs from him, or he from them. I returned to the tent, where the still sleeping party produced a very different and somewhat nasal kind of music.
'Gentlemen! gentlemen!' I shouted, 'there are visitors coming.'
My cousin was the first to awaken, then the officer, who sprang up, and immediately endeavoured to arouse the other two.
'The ladies will be here presently,' he said; 'get up both of you.'
'They are too early,' groaned one; 'I have not had half my sleep.'