left the church, a handsome young man descended from the choir. At the door I asked him if he were not the organist. He nodded and walked away toward the village; accompanying him, I endeavoured to enter into conversation. Several times he looked sadly and confidingly into my face, but uttered not a word; his fresh red lips almost trembled, and he soon turned and wandered off towards the brook. He was dumb.

Not long afterwards, I was sitting at my breakfast in the inn. It consisted of a bowl of milk, flavoured with roasted rye-meal, which is the Winkelsteg coffee.

And now—what were my plans?

I told the cheerful landlady of my intention to wait for favourable weather in Winkelsteg, to live in the little room at the schoolhouse, and to read the records of the schoolmaster—"If I may have permission."

"Oh dear, yes; of course you may!" she exclaimed; "whom could you disturb up there, sir? And no one else would look at those old papers—no one that I know of! So you may select those that you want. The new schoolmaster will bring all such things with him. But I hardly think one will come now. Certainly you may stay, and I will see that the room is kept nice and warm."

So I went up to the schoolhouse again. This time I examined the exterior. It was built for convenience and comfort; there was a wide projecting shingle roof, which, with its bright windows, seemed in some way related to the good-natured roguish face in the picture, of the old man wearing the visor cap.

Then I entered the little room. It was already in order, with a fresh fire crackling in the stove. Through the shining windows I could see the gloomy day and the heavy fog hanging over the forest; but that only made the room seem the more cosy and homelike.

The papers, which I had arranged in the morning, rough, grey and closely written, I now took from the drawer, and seated myself before the well-scoured table at the window, that the daylight might fall on them in a friendly way.

And what the strange man had written, I now began to read. Yet I found portions which needed to be smoothed and changed from the original form. In some places I was obliged to omit, or even insert, entire sentences, at least enough to make the whole intelligible. For only thus was I able to make clear the unusual expressions, and to order and connect the irregular, carelessly formed sentences. However, let it be noticed, that in a few cases many of the quaint, old forms and terms of speech are left, in order to preserve, as far as possible, the peculiar character of these writings.

The first sheet tells nothing and everything; it contains three words: "The Schoolmaster's Story."