aring old fellow," said the Post-master, as he resumed his walk
up and down to keep his feet warm; "but he'll try that lower road once
too often. He can't bear the upper road because it is a new one, and
was not made when he was a boy. He thinks that the world is not half so
wise, or so good, as it was some fifty years back."

"If he make no greater mistakes than that," muttered an old white-headed
hostler, "he may be trusted to choose his own road."

"What's that Philip is mumbling?" said the Post-master; but a general
cry of "Here he comes! Here he is now!" interrupted the answer.

"See how he drives full speed over the bridge!" exclaimed the
Post-master, angrily. "Potz-Teufel! if the Burgomaster hears it, I shall
have to pay a fine of four gulden; and I would not wonder if the noise
awoke him."

There was less exaggeration than might be supposed in this speech, for
Old Cristoph, in open defiance of all German law, which requires that
nothing faster than a slow walk should be used in crossing a wooden
bridge, galloped at the full stride of his beast, making every crazy
plank and timber tremble and vibrate with a crash like small arms.

Never relaxing in his speed, the old man drove at his fastest pace
through the narrow old Roman gate, up the little paved hill, round
the sharp corner, across the Platz, into the main street, and never
slackened till he pulled up with a jerk at the door of the post-house:
when, springing from his seat, he detached the lamp from its place,
and thrust it into the waggon, crying with a voice that excitement had
elevated into a scream,--"He's alive still!--I'll swear I heard him
sigh! I know he's alive!"

It is hard to say what strange conjectures might have been formed of
the old man's sanity, had he not backed his words by stooping down and
lifting from the straw, at the bottom of the cart, the seemingly dead
body of a boy, which, with the alacrity of one far younger, he carried
up the steps, down the long arched passage, and into the kitchen, where
he laid him down before the fire.

"Quick now, Ernest; run for the doctor! Away, Johan; bring the Staats
Physicus--bring two--all of them in the town! Frau Hostess, warm water
and salt--salt, to rub him with--I know he is alive!"

A shake of the head from the old hostess seemed to offer a strong
dissent.

"Never mind that! He is not dead, though he did fall from the
Riesenfels."

"From the Riesenfels!" exclaimed three or four toget