The Performer however was not visible, but appeared to be so near, that Merrywell, who was a great lover of music, beckoned his friends to follow him.

They now entered a small yard at the back of the house, the usual promenade of those who resided in it, and found the Musician seated on one of the benches, which were continued nearly round the yard, and which of itself formed a panorama of rural scenery.

Here was the bubbling cascade and the lofty fountain--there the shady grove of majestic poplars, and the meandering stream glittering in the resplendent lustre of a rising sun.

The waving foliage however and the bubbling fountain were not to be seen or heard, (as these beauties were only to be contemplated in the labours of the painter;) but to make up for the absence of these with the harmony of the birds and the ripplings of the stream, the Musician was endeavouring, like an Arcadian shepherd with his pipe, to make the woods resound with the notes of his fiddle, surrounded by some of his fellow-prisoners, who did not fail to applaud his skill and reward his kindness, by supplying him with rosin, as they termed it, which was by handing him the heavy-wet as often as they found his elbow at rest.

In one place was to be seen a Butcher, who upon his capture was visited by his wife with a child in her arms, upon whom the melody seemed to have no effect.