her in amazement.

"Who was it came galloping at full speed over the Bridge, and passed
the grand guard on the Platz at the same disorderly pace?" said the deep
voice of the Burger-meister, who arose from his bed to learn the cause
of the tumult.

"It was I," exclaimed Cristoph, ruggedly; "there lies the reason."

"The penalty is all the same," growled the man of authority: "four
gulden for one, and two gulden thirty kreutzers for the other offence."

Cristoph either did not hear or heed the speech.

"Where's the mail-bag? I haven't seen that yet," chimed in the
Post-master; who, like a wise official, followed the lead of the highest
village functionary.

Old Cristoph bustled out, and soon returned, not only with the leathern
sack in question, but with a huge fragment of a wooden cross over his
shoulders.

"There's the bag, Herr Post-meister, all safe and dry," said he; "and
here Herr Burger-meister, here's your fine finger-post that the Governor
ordered to be stuck up on the Riesenfels. I suppose they'll need it
again when the snow melts and the road is clear: though to be sure,"
added he, in a lower tone, "he must have worse eyes than Old Cristoph
who could not see his way to Imst from that cliff without a finger-post
to guide him."

The Burgermeister was not disposed to suffer this irony in silence; but
the occasion to exert his authority with due severity was not at that
moment, when the whole attention of the bystanders was directed to
the proceedings of the three village doctors--one of them no less a
personage than the Staats Physicus--who, with various hard terms of art,
were discussing the condition of the senseless form before them.

Were I to recount one half of the learned surmises and deep
prognostications of these wise Esculapians, the chances are, my reader
would grow as weary of the recital as did poor old Cristoph of the
reality. For at last, unable to endure any longer active controversies
about the pia mater and the dura mater, the vitreous table and the
cerebellum, with vague hints of "congestion," "depression," "effusion,"
and so on, he broke in with, "In God's name, dear gentlemen, let him be
kept warm and have a good glass of 'schnaps' down his poor throat;
and when he shews a chance of living, fight away about the name of the
malady to your hearts' content."

I am far from defending, Old Cristoph's rude interruption. The learned
faculties should always be treated with becoming deferen