through the surrounding country, singing the pieces he had composed during the summer months to amuse the people and earn a few sous.
The light-hearted favourite of the muses was always pleased with change. In spring, when the pastures began to look green and the bells of the Alps to resound, he went merrily up the mountain with his bugle and guitar, and did not descend again till the snows of winter drove him home. He would now stretch himself on the flowery sward, under the shade of the bushes, while his flock climbed about on the neighbouring hills,—beneath him the inhabited world, above him the immense deep blue sky, and at night the friendly stars. Sometimes he poured forth from his Alpine bugle the melting strains of the Rans des Vaches, or responded to the notes which echoed from the summits of other mountains. Often his feelings bore him away as if soaring up into the mobles as blue height; and then would he sing the beauties of his hill-flowers, the Alpine skies, and mountain-shepherdesses, while his skilful hand accompanied his strains on the guitar. To his song the shepherds and shepherdesses would listen from afar; but they seldom approached him, for their merriment always rendered the young poet mute and reserved, and he regarded them with little attention, his blue eyes seeming to be fixed on the distance. This conduct procured for Claude the name of the Heavenly Shepherd; but though they mocked in their gay games and dances the timid and retiring youth, many a maiden would lead her flock, as if by accident, into Claude’s neighbourhood, on purpose to see him and to hear his songs.
But when winter drove the flocks lower down into the valley, and at last to the stalls, and the inhabitants of the little village had assembled around the hearth to beguile the slow course of the winter-days, and to gain a few francs by carving wooden toys, Claude would take his guitar and his pipe, and hasten with light feet over the mountain into the rich and ample valleys of Burgundy. The beautiful dreams
