be at the window; he will sing
and play to her a beautiful composition by which he hopes on the
morrow to win her. He wishes to discover whether it be to her taste.
Eva, anxiously awaiting the arrival of her lover, disposes of the
subject by ordering Magdalene to be at the window in her place.
"That would make David jealous!" reflects Magdalene; "His chamber
is toward the lane." The prospect tickles her spirits. Even as
she is urging Eva to go in, for her father, is calling, Walther
comes down the lane. Hopeless after that, Magdalene recognises,
to attempt dragging indoors the damsel. She hurries in by herself
to content Pogner with some discreet misrepresentation.

With passionate endearments Walther and Eva have rushed into each
other's arms. All is lost which depended upon his winning the title
of master-singer. There is nothing further to hope from that quarter;
no choice is left, they must fly together. "Away, where liberty
is!" he cries, "That is where I belong, there where I am master in
the house!" He grows hot with anger at remembrance of the masters'
treatment of him, but, even more, with loathing at the thought
of his beloved sitting to-morrow in their midst, looked upon by
them with covetous eyes as a possible bride. "And I would endure
it, do you think? I would not fall upon them all, sword in hand?"
The night-watchman's horn breaks across his heated outburst. He
claps hand to his sword. Eva draws him gently into the shadow of
the linden-tree, to lie concealed until the watchman have passed,
and leaves him a moment to go within.

The night-watchman, with pike, horn, and lantern, comes down the
lane, calling the hour of ten; he bids the householders look to
their fires and lights, avoiding disaster, and so let God the Lord
be praised! He turns the corner, the sound of his horn dies away.

Sachs from behind his door has played the eavesdropper. "Evil doings
are under way! No less than an elopement! Attention! This must
not be!"

Eva creeps forth from her father's house, disguised for the journey
in Magdalene's things. "No stopping for reflection!" she cries; "Away
from here! Away! Oh, that we were already off and afar!"--"This way,
through the lane...." Walther draws her along with him. "At the
city-gate we shall find servant and horses." But right across the
lane falls suddenly a great shaft of light, projected from Sachs's
window, cast by a lamp placed behind a glass globe which magnifies
it to inten