at his opera he was like a man in a
dream, unconscious of the realities around him. In a year his opera was
finished. He took it to the Intendant of the Ducal Theatre in the city
and played it to him, and the Intendant, greatly pleased, determined to
have it performed without delay. The best singers were allotted parts
in it, and it was performed before the Arch-Duke and his Court, and a
multitude of people.

"The music told the story of Franz's love; it was bright with all his
dreams, and sorrowful with his great despair. Never had such music been
heard; so sweet, so sunlit in its joys, so radiant in its sadness. But
the Arch-Duke and his Court, startled by the new accent of this music,
and influenced by the local and established musicians, who were envious
of this newcomer, listened in frigid silence, so that the common people
in the gallery dared not show signs of their delight. In fact, the opera
was a complete failure. Public opinion followed the Court, and found no
words, bad or strong enough to condemn what they called the new-fangled
rubbish. Among those who blamed the new work there was none so bitter
as the citizen whose children Franz had been teaching. For this man
considered himself to be a genius, and was inordinately vain, and his
ignorance was equal to his conceit. He dismissed Franz from his service.
All doors were now closed to him, and being on the verge of starvation
he was reduced to earning his bread in the streets by playing his pipe.
This also proved unsuccessful, and it was with difficulty that he earned
a few pence every day.

"At last he burnt all his manuscripts, and went into the hills; the hill
people welcomed him, but their kindness came too late; his heart was
broken, and when sickness came to him with the winter snow, he had no
longer any strength to resist it. The peasants found him one day lying
cold and stiff in his hut. They buried him on the hill-side. The night
of his funeral a strange fiddler with a shining face was seen standing
beside his grave and playing the most lovely tunes on a violin.

"The name of Franz was soon forgotten, but although he died obscure and
penniless he left a rich legacy. For he taught the hill-people three
songs, the songs he had sung at Court in honour of Princess Kunigmunde,
and they never died. They spread from the hills to the plains, from the
plains to the river, from the river to the woods, and indeed you can
still hear them on the hills of the no