other people; a good bit more. Wurzentoni—not only once, ten, nay a hundred times,—has seen the schoolmaster praying out of a little book in which were all sorts of sayings, magic and witchcraft signs. If the schoolmaster had died anywhere in the woods, says Wurzentoni, then someone would have found the body; if the devil had taken him, then his cloak would have been left behind; for the cloak, says Wurzentoni, is innocent; the devil has no power over that, not the least! Something altogether different has happened, my friends! The schoolmaster has bewitched himself, and so, invisible, he wanders around day and night in Winkelsteg—day and night at every hour. That's because he 's curious to see what the people are doing, and to hear what stories they are telling about him, and because——. I 'm not saying anything bad about the schoolmaster, not I; I should n't know what to say, indeed I should n't!"

"Oh, if the devil was n't any wiser than the black charcoal-burner!" coughed the voice behind the stove. "The old scoundrel still leads the Winkelstegers around by the nose!"

An enraged lion could not have started up more angrily than did the rough and sullen landlord. Fairly groaning with impatience, he plunged behind the stove, from whence issued alarming cries.

Hastening forward, the landlady cried: "Come, Lazarus, don't mind that stupid rascal there! It is n't worth while that you should lift a finger on his account. Come, be sensible, Lazarus; see, here I have poured out your drink of cider for you."

He yielded at last, and Schorschl sneaked out through the door like a dog, leaving Lazarus with bits of hair in his fist. Grumbling, he walked towards the chest upon which his wife had placed a mug of cider. Almost choking, he tremblingly seized it and, carrying it to his lips, took a long draught. With staring eyes he stopped a moment, then, beginning again, he drained the mug to the last drop! That must have been a terrible thirst! The hand holding the empty mug sank slowly; with a deep breath the landlord glowered straight before him.

So the time passed, until the landlady came to me and said: "We can give you a good bed up in the attic; but I will tell you at once, sir, that the wind has carried away a few shingles from the roof to-day, and so it drips through a little. In the schoolhouse above here, is a very nice, comfortable room, which has already been arranged for the new teacher; it heats well, too, and we have the key; for my old man is Winkel Magistrate, and has charge of it. Now, if you would n't mind sleeping in the schoolhouse, I would advise you to do it. Indeed it's not in the least gloomy, and it 's very quiet and clean. I think I should like to live there the year round."

So I chose the schoolhouse instead of the attic. Not long afterwards, a maid with a lantern accompanied me out into the dark, rainy night, through the village to the church beyond the graveyard, on the edge of which stood the schoolhouse. The hall was bare, and the shadows from the lantern chased each other up and down the walls.

Then we entered a little room, where, in the tile stove, a bright fire was crackling. My companion placed a candle on the table, threw back the brown cover of the bed, and opened a drawer of the bureau, that I might put away my things. All at once she exclaimed: "No, really, we should all of us be ashamed of ourselves; here are these scraps still scattered about!" She hastily seized an armful of sheets of paper, which were lying in confusion in the drawer. "I 'll take care of you soon enough, you bits of trash; the stove is the place for you!"

"Stop, stop," I interrupted, "perhaps there are things there that the new teacher can use."

She threw the papers back into the drawer with an impatient gesture. In her frenzy for cleaning up, it would doubtless have given her great pleasure to burn them; just as indeed many ignorant people are possessed with a desire to destroy everything which seems to them useless.

"The gentleman can put on the old schoolmaster's night-cap," said the girl roguishly, laying a blue striped night-cap on the pillow. She then gave me some advice in regard to the door-key, and said: "So, in Gottesnamen, now I will go!" and with this she left me.

She closed the outside door, and, turning the key of the inner, I was alone in the room of the missing schoolmaster.

How strange had been the fortunes of this man, and how curious the reports of the people! And how contradictory these reports! A good, excellent man, a fool; and what's more, one whom at last the devil claims for his own!

I looked around me in the room. There was a worm-eaten table and a brown chest. On the wall hung an old clock; the figures were entirely effaced from the dial under which the short pendulum swung busily backward and forward, as if trying to hasten faster and faster out of a sad past into a better future. And, curiously enough, I could also hear the ticking of the church-tower clock outside!

Near this time-piece hung a few pipes, carved out of juniper wood, with disproportionately long stems; then a violin, and an old zither with three strings. There were besides the usual furnishings in the room, from the boot-jack under the bedstead to the calendar on the wall. The calendar was last year's. The windows were much larger than is usual in wooden houses, and were provided with lattices, through which dried birch-twigs were twined.

Pushing aside one of the blue curtains, I looked out into the darkness. From one corner of the churchyard, something shone like a stray moonbeam. It was probably the phosphorous light from a mouldering wooden cross, or from the remains of a coffin. The rain pattered, the wind blew in chilly gusts, as is usual after hailstorms.

I had given up the mountain trip for the next day. I decided either to wait in Winkelsteg for fine weather, or, by means of one of the coal waggons, to go away again. Sometimes, even in summer, the damp fogs last for weeks in the mountains, while in the outlying districts the sun is still shining.

Before I retired, I rummaged a little among the old papers in the drawer. There were sheets of music, writing exercises, notes, and all kinds of scribbling on rough grey paper, written partly with pencil, partly with pale, yellowish ink, some hastily, and some with great care. And between the leaves lay pressed plants, butterflies, which had long lost the dust from their wings, and a lot of animal and landscape drawings, mostly rather clumsily done. But one picture struck me particularly, a curious picture, painted in bright colours. It represented the bent figure of an old man, sitting upon the trunk of a tree, smoking a long-stemmed pipe. He wore a flat, black cap, with a broad, projecting brim, under which his hair was combed straight back. Whoever had drawn the picture must have been an artist; one could see that from the expression of the face. Out of one eye, which was wide open, gazed an earnest, though gentle soul; the other, which was half closed, twinkled roguishly. When such guests look forth from the windows of a house, it surely cannot be poor and barren within. Above the cheeks, made perhaps too rosy by the well-meaning artist, were deep furrows, as if storms and torrents had swept over them. On the other hand, the long white beard gave a very droll appearance to the otherwise smoothly-shaven face; it was for all the world like an icicle hanging from under the chin. About the throat a bright red kerchief was twisted a