Some others of these merry hearts thought nothing wanting but a little good music; and, as all the instruments they were able to muster among themselves, proved to be two fifes, two fiddles, two rusty iron pot-lids, and a few Jews'-harps, they did not scruple to impress the Bavarian band into their service, and make them patrol the city playing triumphal tunes in honour of their own defeat.
There were likewise certain native ballad-singers of the itinerant order, who turned a good many pence, that is to say kreutzers, this day, by vocalizing on their own account, at tavern-doors and in public places, to the great delight of the Tyrolese, who sat on benches and on door-steps, listening to them while they quaffed hot coffee in thick ale-glasses, or tasted for the first, and perhaps last time in their lives, iced rum and water.
Others of them were not too tired to get up a game of bowls in the market-place, which excited immense merriment among themselves, and crowds of townspeople at the windows, with whom they talked as comfortably as if they had known them a hundred years. Just as they had had enough of it, Punch very opportunely made his appearance, and kept them amused till it was dark. Then they lay down on the ground, in and about the town, and slept soundly all night.
Hofer thought he should like to see a play. So, to the theatre he went, where, on asking what there was to pay, the money-taker with a bow replied, "Nothing." So he walked into the boxes, and picked out the very best place; where his remarkable dress and person drew on him the attention of every one in the house.
But if they thought a good deal of him, he was very little aware of it; for there were a great many things to employ his attention. In the first place, there seemed to him a great waste of wax lights; half the number would have been quite sufficient. In the second place, the ladies' dresses appeared to him a great deal too low, too short, and too scanty: he hardly liked to look at them, and was very glad to see no other Tyrolese in the house. In the third place, the orchestral music, when it struck up, quite took him by surprise: he had a sensitive though untutored ear, and a tender heart; its dying falls and gradual swells, its minors, its concords, its plaintive and its impassioned strains, nearly overpowered him.