The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-02-06

! at Bruclk."
''Ah Well, then, anyhow, put me on
chicken to roast"
Scarce had he pronounced these Words
when the pale girl, with dishevelled hair,
rushed to the staircase, crying:-
mo one shall touch my fowls-no one
shall touch my fowls Flo, no, no Leave
! the Lords creatures alive"
There was something so terrible in the
| poor creatures looks that Haftz hastily an
swered:-
''No, no; we won't kill the fowls. Let us
see the potatoes. l go in for potatoes. 1
shall stick to you. Now 1 see my vocation
clearly. Here 1 stay three months-six
months-long enough, anyhow, to get as lean
as a fakir !"
He said this with singular vivacity, and the
host cried to the pale GIRL
''Geneveva! !-Geneveva! !-look-the spirit
has him-like the other!"
The gale outside grew stronger, the
fire fared unsteadily on the hearth, and
sent its volumes of greyish smoke in
wbirling eddies TO the ceiling. The
fowls, in the fickering freight, seemed to
dance on the steps of the stairs, while the
mad girl sang with her shIill voice a strange
old-fashioned air, and the green fagots, sweat
ing with sap in the flame, simmered mourn
full accompaniment.
Hafitz understood that he had got into the
potatoes, and raising the great red water Jug,
drank long and deep. Then his spirit grew
calm again. he noticed that the girl had gone,
and only the man was left before the fire.
''Herr Wirth, he resumed, 'show me to
bed"
The innkeeper, lighting a lamp, went
slowly up the wurm-eaten stairs, raised
heavy trap-door with his
gray head, and showed Carl to the garrett
! under the thatch
''There's your bed" said he, setting the
lamp on the floor, ''pleasant dreams: and be
careful with the light"
Then he went down again, aud HAITI re-
mained alone crouching before great straw
mattress with big feather bed for a coverlet
He had been musing for some moments,
wondering whether it would be prudent to
go to sleep or not, for the old fellows face
was far from reassuring, when, thinking over
the light grey eyes, the livid mouth thicl1-set
with wrinkles, the broad, bony forehead aud
parchment skin, he suddenly recollected
that on the G0lgeRberg (Gallows Hill) we're
three hanged malefactors, and that one of
them ouriously resembled his host-thRt he,
too, had sunken eyes, ragged elbows, and his
great toe protruding through his shoe rotted
by the rain.
He recollected, too, that the poor wretch,
Mechoir by name, had been musician, and
had been hung for knocking on the head
with his jug the landlord of the Golden
Lamb, who was dunning him for a c0n0en-
tiOnSthaler.
The poor devils music had formerly
touched him deeply-it was wild and fan
tastic, and Master Albertus' pupil used to
envy the vagabond; but, at this moment, see
ing in fancy the figure on the gallows, its
rags futtering in the night breeze, and the
carrion crows lowering and cawing about it,
he felt chill run over him; and his fear was
% Il ZIn1 rlo,, I, all, 8
the shed against the wall, fiddle with two
withered palm leaves over it.
He would have been glad to make his
escape, but at thai instant the rude voice of
the host reached his ears.
''Put out the lamp, will you ?" cried he
''go to bed-I told you to look out for the
light"
At these words Carl shivered with fright,
but he stretched himself on the great mat
tress and blew out the lamp.
Everything grew STILL
Now, spite of his resolution not to shut his
eyes, what with listening to the bowling of
tbs wind, the hooting of the owls through
the darkness and the scampering of the mice
over the rotten floor, towords one in the
morning Hafitz was sound asleep, when sob
-sad-grievous- us-heartrending-w hina
with a start, and his face bathed in cold
sweat.
He looked, and saw doubled up in the
corner of the garret the figure of man; it
was Melchoir, the malefactor It's black hair
hung to it's lean waist, and it's neck and chest
were bare. So lean was it, one might have
taken it for the skeleton of an immense
grasshopper; a moonbeam, which found its
way through the little window, lit it up family
with livid gleam, and long spiders webs
angled about it.
Haiti, in silence, wit h staring eyes and
wide open mouth, gazed at the straEge being
as one might gaze at death standing behind
ones bed-curtains when the fatal hour draws
nigh.
Suddenly the skeleton stretched out its
long bony hand and seized the violin from
the wall, put it to its shoulder, and then,
after moment of silence, began to play.
In its music there were-why there were
notes as funereal as the sound of the earth
crumbling on the coffin of one we have dearly
loved-solemn as the thunder of waterfalls
long drawn out by mountain echoes-mai iestic
as autumn gales through sounding forests;
and then again sad-sad as incurable despair
Then, in the midst of these sobs, would come
a song-light, dulcet, silyery as the warblng
of fight of joyous sparrows duttering over
Towering shrubbery. 1t would swell and
eddy in graceful waves, with an ineffable
thrill of careless delight, aud then in an in
slant take fight, scared off by the waltz, mad,
palpitating, ecstatio; love, joy, despair, all
sang, wept streamed forth beneath the vi
brating bow
And Carl, despite his inexpressible terror,
stretched out his arms and cried
80, great, great, great artist o, sub
lime genius o, how pity your sad fate I
"a fraH foN hos aA mt 81 nf