r the bridge of a single plank that spans the torrent; he
slowly descends the flight of stone steps, slippery with falling spray,
and, guided by the wooden railing, he treads the narrow path along the
edge of the cliff, which, nearly perpendicular, stands over the valley
of the Inn. There is a little hut here--a very poor and humble one, the
very poorest of the whole village--and yet it is before the door of this
lowly dwelling that the "Nachtwachter" stands at midnight each night
throughout the year, and then, as he calls the hour, he cries, "Hans
Joergle, good night!--rest soundly, Hans Joergle!"

Who can be this Hans Joergle, for whose peaceful slumber authority is
watchful? If you care for the answer of the question, you must listen
to a story--if I dare to call by so imposing a name the following little
narrative--which, for want of better, I shall call

HANS JOeRGLE

Something short of forty years ago, there came to dwell at the Kletscher
a poor widow with one child, a boy of about nine years old. She never
told much of her history to the neighbours, and merely accounted for her
choice of this secluded spot from the circumstance that she had known
it when a child, her grandfather having been many years an inhabitant of
the "Dorf;" and that, from dwelling on the pleasant days she had known
there once, and talking over them so often with her little Hans, she at
last determined to gratify him and herself by revisiting the cherished
spot, hoping to end her days there in peace.

The grandfather of whom she spoke--long since dead--had been well known
and respected in the village; so that, at first on his account, and
subsequently on her own, the widow was welcomed kindly amongst them. Her
subsistence was derived principally from a small pension she received
from the Government, for her husband had been a grenadier of the
Austrian Imperial Guard, and fell on the field of Austerlitz. This
little pittance would not have sufficed for wants even humble as hers,
without the aid of her own industry; but she was clever at her needle,
and could accomplish many a triumph in millinery above village
skill; and by the exertion of this art she contrived to eke out a
subsistence--in poverty, it is true, but in contentment also.

If little Hans Joergle could not contribute to the common stock by
any efforts of his labour, his gentle, quiet nature, his guileless
innocence, won for him the love of all the village. Old and young