or

It

or on his dog!" But remorse soon followed. "Woe is me! I must fly the faces of my kind! I must turn hermit, live like Roland on a bleak rock, beyond speech with man, woman, or child!" As he said this, he was run against by some one, blind with haste, whom he caught by the arm. was the maid-servant of his old friend and neighbor, Hermann Liederbach. "Let me go,” cried the breathless female, struggling to get free. "I am running to fetch the doctor to my poor master, who has dropped down in a fit, if he is not dead." "That's very sudden," said Peter, as if musing. “O, like a gun!" answered the maiden; "he was quite well and merry only the minute before, talking and laughing with that Wild Student, Ferdinand Wenzel."

"

"It's

Poor Krauss was ready to drop down himself. However, he contrived to get home, where he threw himself on his knees behind the counter, and hid his face amongst the bales of cloth. The horrid work was begun—but where would it end? Nor were his fears in vain. On a sudden his attention was excited by the tramping of numerous feet, and going to the shop-door, he saw a crowd following four men, who carried a dead body on a board. "Hollo! what have you there?' shouted an opposite neighbor from his upper window. poor Stephen Asbeck," answered several voices; he dropped down dead in the Market-place whilst squabbling with one of the students." Krauss stood rooted to the spot, till the whole procession had passed by. "It's dreadful work," said Mrs. Krauss, just entering from the back-parlor. "What is?" asked the startled tailor, with all the tremor of a guilty man. “To be cut off so suddenly in the prime of youth and beauty." "Beauty!" repeated Krauss, with a bewildered look, for in truth neither Liederbach nor Asbeck had any pretence to good looks. "Yes, beauty," replied Mrs. Krauss; "but I forgot that the news came while you were absent. Poor Dorothy has died suddenly, - the handsome girl who rejected that goodfor-nothing Ferdinand Wenzel." Krauss dropped into a chair as if shot. His fat wife wondered a little at such excessive emotion, but remembering that her husband was very tenderhearted, went quietly on with her knitting.

Poor Peter's brain was spinning round. He who would not willingly hurt a dog, to be privy to, if not accomplice in, three such atrocious and deliberate murders! His first im

pulse was to discover the whole affair to the Police: but who would believe so extraordinary a story? Where were his witnesses? Wenzel, of course, would confess nothing; and it would be difficult to call the Devil into court. Still his knowledge invested him with a very awful responsibility, and called upon him to put an end to the diabolical system. But how? Perhaps and he shuddered at the thought-it was his dreadful duty to avert this wholesale assassination by the death of the assassin. As if to sanction the suggestion, even as it passed through the tailor's mind, the detestable Wenzel came into the shop to add some new item to his instructions. "Have you heard the news?" asked the Wild Student, carelessly ; "Death is wondrous busy in Bonn." Krauss only answered with a mournful shake of the head. Poor dear Dorothy!" sighed Mrs. Krauss; " so young, and so beautiful." The Wild Student burst into a sneering laugh. "There will be more yet," said he; "they will keep drop, drop, dropping, like overripe plums from the tree!"

So fiendish an announcement was too much for even the milky nature of Peter Krauss. His resolution was taken on the spot. "Wretch Monster! Were-Wolf!" he said to himself, "thou wert never of woman born. It can be no more sin to slay thee than the savage tiger! Yes, thou shalt hear the WORD of doom thyself!" But the moment he attempted to utter it, his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth; his throat seemed to collapse; and when he had regained the power of speech, the fatal word, that hitherto had never ceased ringing in his inward ear, had vanished completely from his memory! However, such an oblivion was in itself a blessing, as it removed any temptation to actual guilt; but, alas no sooner had the Wild Student departed, than back came the hateful syllables, clear and distinct on the tablets of Krauss's mind, like a writing in sympathetic ink.

As the vile Wenzel had predicted, the number of sudden deaths rapidly increased. One after another, the most respectable of the inhabitants fell down in the street, and were carried home. All Bonn was filled with lamentations and dismay. "It's the plague," said one. "It's the Black Death," cried another. Some advised a consultation of physicians; others proposed a penitential procession to the Kreutzberg.

In the mean time the unfortunate tailor again took refuge in the bedroom, desperately closing his eyes, and stopping his ears, against the melancholy sights and sounds that were constantly occurring in the street. But the mortality had become too frightful for even the apathetic temper of the stout Trudchen, who for once, thrown into a state of violent agitation, felt the necessity of comfort and companionship. Accordingly she sought eagerly for her husband, who, sitting, as we have said, with closed eyes and ears, was of course unconscious of her entrance. Besides, he was grieving aloud, and his wife bent over him to catch the words. "Miserable mortals," he groaned, "miserable frail mortals that we are!

wretched candles, blown out at a breath! Who would have thought that such a cause could produce such a calamity? Who could have dreamed it? to think that such a hearty man as poor Leiderbach, or poor Asbeck, could be destroyed by a sound, nay, that half a town should perish through simply saying " and the unconscious Peter pronounced the fatal WORD. It had scarcely passed his lips when something fell so heavily as to shake the whole house, and hastily opening his eyes, he beheld the comely Trudchen, the wife of his bosom, the mother of his darling Peterkin, in the last death-quiver at his feet!

stupefied, be

The horrified Peter Krauss was stunned, wildered! With his eyes fixed on the victim of his fatal curiosity, he sat motionless in his chair. It was the shock of a moral earthquake, that shook his very soul to its foundations. He could neither think nor feel. His brain was burning hot, but his heart seemed turned to solid ice. It was long before he was even sensible of outward impressions; but at last he became aware of a continued tugging at the tail of his coat. A glance sufficed, it was little Peterkin. "He will be the next!" shrieked the frantic father; and tossing his arms aloft, he threw himself down the stairs and rushed out of the house. At the top of his speed, as if pursued by the unrelenting Fiend, he raced through the streets and out of the gates, into the open country, where he kept running to and fro like a mad creature, tormented by the stings of conscience. Over rocks, amongst thickets, through water, he leaped and crashed, and struggled; his flesh was torn and bleeding, but he cared not, he wanted to die. At one

time his course lay towards the Eifel, as if to end his misery in that scene of volcanic desolation, so similar to his own; but suddenly turning round, he scoured back to his native town, through the gates, along the streets, and dashing into the church of St. Remi, threw himself on his knees beside the confessional. The venerable Father Ambrose was in the chair, and with infinite difficulty extracted the horrible story from the distracted man. When it was ended, the priest desired to know the awful WORD which acted with such tremendous energy. But, your reverence," sobbed Krauss, with a thrill of natural horror, "it kills those who but hear it pronounced."

"True, my son,” replied the aged priest, "but all unholy spells will lose their power within these sacred walls."

"But your reverence

"Peter Krauss!" said the priest, in a loud, angry tone, “I insist on it, if you hope for absolution."

"POTZTAUSEND!" murmured Krauss, in a low, tremulous voice, with a shudder throughout his frame, and a terrified look all round him. And lo! the ghostly father was a ghost indeed, the church of St. Remi had tumbled into fragments, and instead of the holy tapers, a few strange lights were gleaming mysteriously in the distance. "Potztausend!" repeated Peter Krauss, giving himself a shake, and rubbing his eyes, "it's all the fault of the good Ahrbleichart; but I've certainly been sleeping and dreaming on the wrong side of the town-gate!

5*

DEAR BECKY, —

TO REBECCA PAGE.

Missis being gone off to bed betimes, I take the oportunity to set up to rite to you how we get on. At this present we are at Bon, an old town with very good prospex, but dredful uproarus by reason of its Collidge, and so menny Schollards, witch as I've experenst at Oxfud, always make more desturbans and hubbub then the ignorent and unlarned. To be sure wen the Germin ones are not making a noys, they sing bewtiful, witch is sum amends. Its been like a vocle consort all the evening in the streets. But then such figgers! It seems every won's studdy by dressing up and transmogrifying, to make himself as partickler as he can. Sum have square beerds, sum have triangle ones, sum have two mustaches, and sum contrive to have three, by sticking another on their chins. Thinks I, wen the hollydis cum, it must be a wise Father as nose his hone son!

ALL IN ONE DAY."

But its the same in Garmany with the brute beastasses witch are no more left to natur then the human creturs. I mean the canine specious. One fine day, all at once, as if by command of the Lord Mare, lo and behold there was every