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The only love adventure which they had ever met with still evoked their laughter, so silly did it seem to them now. It consisted of a series of serenades which they had given to two young ladies during the time when they, the serenaders, had formed part of the college band.
Four of our Venetians had trained voices and memories of inexhaustible music. Over the level water, with the ripple plashing at our keel, their songs went abroad, and mingled with the failing day. The barcaroles and serenades peculiar to Venice were, of course, in harmony with the occasion.
The militia musters, now done away with, gave many occasions for them. Every year we had one or two great squirrel-hunts, ended by a supper, paid for by the losing side, that is, by the side shooting the fewest. Almost every season we had a dancing-school. Singing-schools, too, there were every winter. There was also a small band of music in the village, and serenades were not uncommon.
"Come," said Eloise, springing to her feet; "let's go up and get ready for luncheon." "Have you told me all?" asked Allan, "or is there some gay young troubadour who serenades you in the evening and whose existence you conceal from me for reasons of your own?" "Nary a troubadour," she replied.
It did more than this for the impecunious composer. When performed, it made a success of enthusiasm. He was called twenty times before the curtain. Honors and decorations were showered upon him. He was everywhere greeted with serenades and ovations. Every opera-house in Europe clamored for the new work. In a day he had risen from utter obscurity and become world-famous.
Serenades might be all very well for Italy, but we did not favor them in Nismes; and stepping briskly up to the musician, I said abruptly, "We want none of this miserable noise!" He started as if shot, saying, "Pardon, monsieur," evidently taking me for one of the family; a mistake which I favored by knocking at the door.
He tells me of their wooing by serenades at the window, and that their friends do always make the match; but yet that they have opportunities to meet at masse at church, and there they make love: that the Court there hath no dancing, nor visits at night to see the King or Queen, but is always just like a cloyster, nobody stirring in it: that my Lord Sandwich wears a beard now, turned up in the Spanish manner.
Everything has its turn, from the heavy barges of merchandise, pushed by long poles and the patient shoulder, to the floating pavilions of the great serenades, and you may study at your leisure the admirable Venetian arts of managing a boat and organising a spectacle.
Beautiful songs resound as we approach: we hear Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. The melody's varied beacon makes known to us where Upsala's students are assembled. The song proceeds from the assembly-room from the tavern saloon, and like serenades in the silent evening, when a young friend departs, or a dear guest is honoured.
Eleven o'clock; the white owls were at their boldest, hooting lugubrious serenades to the answering wolves. Pepillo was at the cabin door, trying the latch. Mex heard the sound, got up, and unfastened the bolts. "Sh!" said she, and giving him the candle, pointed to the back room; then drowsily resumed her nest on the buffalo robe.
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