d was cleared of this difficulty; and he now advanced, shovel in
hand, to make a passage through the snow.

"Saperlote!" cried he; "here is the finger-post! This must have come
down from the upper road."

Scarcely were the words uttered, when a cry of horror broke from him. He
trembled from head to foot; his eyes seemed bursting from their sockets:
and well might they, for, close around the wood, just where it emerged
from the snow, were two little hands clasped tightly round the timber.

He threw himself on the spot, and tore up the snow with his fingers.
An arm appeared, and then the long yellow hair of a head resting on it.
Working with all the eagerness of a warm and benevolent nature, he soon
disinterred the little body, which, save one deep cut upon the
forehead, seemed to have no other mark of injury; but it lay cold and
motionless--no sign of life remaining.

He pressed the little flask of brandy--all that he possessed--against
the wan, white lips of the child; but the liquor ran down the chin and
over the cheek--not a drop of it was sucked. He rubbed the hands, he
chafed the body, he even shook it; but, heavy and inert, it gave no sign
of life.

"Ach, Gott!" muttered he, "it is all over!" But still, with a hope that
asked no aid from reason, he wrapped the child's body in his fur mantle,
and, laying him softly down in the cart, continued his way.

The lights, which were glittering here and there through the little
village inns, had been gradually extinguished as the night grew
later, till, at last" none remained, save those around the door of
the post-house, where a little group of loungers was gathered, As they
talked together, one or other occasionally would step out into the road
and seem to listen, and then rejoin his companions. "No sign of him yet!
What can keep him so late as this?" cried the Post-master, holding up
his watch, that the lamp-light should fall on it. "It wants but four
minutes to eleven--his time, by right, is half after nine."

"He is trying the upper road belike, and the deep snow has detained
him."

"No, no," said another, "Old Cristoph's too knowing for that: bad as
the lower road is, the upper is worse; and with the storm of last night,
there will be drift there deep enough to swallow horse and mail-cart
twice over."

"There may be fallen snow on the lower road," whispered a
third; "Cristoph told me last week he feared it would not be safe for
another journey."

"He's a d