"Yes, it is admirable!" replied the counselor. "Does it not seem to you, my good Van Tricasse, that humanity is destined to dwell rather at such heights, than to crawl about on the surface of our globe?"
"I agree with you, honest Niklausse," returned the burgomaster, "I agree with you. You seize sentiment better when you get clear of nature. You breathe it in every sense! It is at such heights that philosophers should be formed and that sages should live, above the miseries of this world!"
"Shall we go around the platform?" asked the counselor.
"Let us go around the platform," replied the burgomaster.
And the two friends, arm in arm, and putting, as formerly, long pauses between their questions and answers, examined every point of the horizon.
"It is at least seventeen years since I have ascended the belfry tower," said Van Tricasse.
"I do not think I ever came up before," replied Niklausse; "and I regret it, for the view from this height is sublime! Do you see, my friend, the pretty stream of the Vaar, as it winds among the trees?"
"And, beyond, the heights of Saint Hermandad! How gracefully they shut in the horizon! Observe that border of green trees, which nature has so picturesquely arranged! Ah, nature, nature, Niklausse! Could the hand of man ever hope to rival her?"
"It is enchanting, my excellent friend," replied the counselor.
"See the flocks and herds lying in the verdant pasture,—the oxen, the cows, the sheep!"
"And the laborers going to the fields! You would say they were Arcadian shepherds; they only want a bagpipe!"
"And over all this fertile country the beautiful blue sky, which no vapor dims! Ah, Niklausse, one might become a poet here! I do not understand why Saint Simeon Stylites was not one of the greatest poets of the world."
"It was because, perhaps, his column was not high enough," replied the counselor with a gentle smile.
At this moment the chimes of Quiquendone rang out. The clear bells played one of their most melodious airs. The two friends listened in ecstasy.
Then in his calm voice, Van Tricasse said: "But what,
