On guard the faithful mountains stand:
"Who wanders o'er the moorland there
From other climes, in morning fair?"
And as I look far o'er the land,
For very glee my heart laughs out.
The joyous "vivats" then I shout;
Watchword and battle-cry shall be:
Austria, for thee!
The landscape far and near I know;
The birds and brooks and forests fair
Send me their greetings on the air;
The Danube sparkles down below;
St. Stephen's spire far in the blue
Seems waving me a welcome too.
Warm to its core my heart shall be,
Austria, for thee!
I was standing on the summit of a mountain whence the first view of Austria can be had, and I waved my hat joyfully in the air as I sang the last verse, when suddenly from the forest behind me some fine instrumental music joined in. I turned quickly and perceived three young fellows in long blue cloaks, one playing a hautboy, another a clarionet, and the third, who wore an old three-cornered hat, a horn. They played an accompaniment to my song, which made the woods ring again. I, nothing loath, took out my fiddle, and played and sang with a will. Then one glanced meaningly at the others; he who played the horn stopped puffing out his cheeks and took the instrument down from his mouth; at last they all ceased playing, and stared at me. I ended my performance also, and in turn stared at them. "We supposed," the cornetist said at last, "from the length of the gentleman's coat that he was a traveling Englishman, journeying afoot here to admire the beauties of nature, and we thought we might perhaps earn a trifle for our own travels. But the gentleman seems to be a musician himself." "Properly speaking, a Receiver," I interposed, "and I come at present directly from Rome; but, as it is some time since I received anything, I have paid my way with my violin." "'Tis not worth much nowadays," said the cornetist, as he betook himself to the woods again, and began fanning with his cocked hat a fire that they had kindled there. "Wind-instruments are more profitable," he continued. "When a noble family is seated quietly at their mid-day meal, and we unexpectedly enter their vaulted vestibule and all three begin to blow with all our might, a servant is sure to come running out to us with money or food, just to get rid of the noise. But will you not share our repast?"
The fire in the forest was burning cheerily, the morning was fresh; we all sat down on the grass, and two of the musicians took from the fire a can in which there was coffee with milk. Then they brought forth some bread from the pockets of their cloaks, and each dipped it in the can and drank turn about with such relish that it was a pleasure to see them. But the cornetist said, "I never could endure the black slops," and, after handing me a huge slice of bread and butter, he brought out a bottle of wine, from which he offered me a draught. I took a good pull at it, but had to put it down in a hurry with my face all of a pucker, for it tasted like "old Gooseberry." "The wine of the country," said the cornetist; "but Italy has probably spoilt your German taste."
Then he rummaged in his wallet, and finally produced from among all sorts of rubbish an old, tattered map of the country, in the corner of which the emperor in his royal robes was still to be discerned, a sceptre in his right hand, the orb in his left. This map he carefully spread out upon the ground; the others drew nearer, and they all consulted together as to their route.
"The vacation is nearly over," said one; "let us turn to the left as soon as we leave Linz, so as to be in Prague in time." "Upon my word!" exclaimed the cornetist. "Whom do you propose to pipe to on that road? Nobody there save wood-choppers and charcoal-burners; no culture nor taste for art—no station where one can spend a night for nothing!" "Oh, nonsense!" rejoined the other. "I like the peasants best; they know where the shoe pinches, and are not so particular if you sometimes blow a false note." "That is, you have no point d'honneur," said the cornetist. "Odi profanum vulgus et arceo, as the Latin has it." "Well, there must be some churches on the road," struck in the third; "we can stop at the Herr Pastors'." "No, I thank you," said the cornetist; "they give little money, but long sermons on the folly of philandering about the world when we might be acquiring knowledge, and they wax specially eloquent when they sniff in me a future member of their fraternity. No, no, clericus clericum non decimat. But why be in such a hurry? The Herr Professors are still at Carlsbad, and are sure not to be precise about the very day." "Nay, distinguendum est inter et inter," replied the other; "quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi!"
I now saw that they were students from Prague, and I conceived a great respect for them, especially as they spoke Latin like their mother-tongue. "Is the gentleman a student?" the cornetist asked me. I replied modestly that I had always been very fond of study, but that I had had no money. "That's of no consequence," said the cornetist; "we have neither money nor rich patrons, but we get along by mother-wit. Aurora musis amica, which means, being interpreted, 'Do not waste too much time at breakfast.' But when the bells at noon echo from tower to tower, and from mountain to mountain, and the scholars crowd out of the old dark lecture-room, and swarm shouting through the streets, we betake us to the Capuchin monastery, to the father who presides in the refectory, where there is sure to be a table spread for us, or if not actually spread, there will be at least a dish apiece, and we fall to, and perfect ourselves at the same time in our Latin. So you see we study right ahead from day to day. And when at last the vacation comes, and all the others depart for their homes, by coach or on horseback, then we stroll forth through the streets and through the city gate with our instruments under our cloaks and the world before us."
I can't tell how it was, but, while he spoke, the thought that such learned people were so forlorn and forsaken in this world went to my very heart. And then I thought of myself, and how I was not much better off, and the tears came into my eyes. The cornetist eyed me askance. "I wouldn't give a fig," he went on, "to travel with horses, and coffee, and freshly-made beds, and nightcaps and boot-jacks, all ordered beforehand. It's just the delightful part of it that, when we set out early in the morning, and the birds of passage are winging their flight high in the air above us, we do not know what chimney is smoking for us today, and can never foresee what special piece of luck may befall us before evening." "Yes," said the other, "and wherever we go, and take out our instruments, people are merry; and when we play at noon in the vestibule of some great country-house, the maids will dance before the door, and their masters and mistresses will have the drawing-room door opened a little, the better to hear the music, and the clatter of plates and the smell of the roast float out through the chink, and the young misses at table well-nigh twist their necks off to see the musicians outside." "That's true!" exclaimed the cornetist, with sparkling eyes. "Let who will pore over their compendiums, we choose to study in the vast picture-book which the dear God spreads open before us! Yes, the gentleman may believe me, we make the right sort of fellows, who know how to preach to the peasants from the pulpit and to bang the cushion, so that the clodpoles down below are ready to burst with humiliation and edification."
At hearing them talk thus, I became so pleased and interested that I longed to be a student too. I could have listened forever, for I enjoy the conversation of men of learning, from whom much is to be gained. But we had no real, sensible conversation, for one of the students was worried because the vacation was so nearly at an end. He put his clarionet together, set up a sheet of music on his knees, and began to practice a difficult passage from a mass which was to be played when they returned to Prague. There he sat and fingered and played away, sometimes so false that it fairly pierced your ears and you couldn't hear your own voice.
Suddenly the cornetist exclaimed in his bass tones, "I have it!" and down came his fist on the map before him. The other stopped practising for a moment, and looked at him in surprise. "Hark ye," said the cornetist, "there is a castle not far from Vienna, and in that castle there is a porter, and that porter is my cousin! Dearest fellow-students, that must be our goal; we must pay our respects to my cousin, and he will arrange for our further journey." When I heard that, I sprang to my feet. "Doesn't he play on the bassoon?" I cried. "Is he not tall and straight, with a big, prominent nose?" The cornetist nodded, upon which I embraced him so enthusiastically that his three-cornered hat fell off, and we all immediately determined to take the mail-boat on the Danube to the castle of the beautiful Countess.