dissection; and should they have found any
limbs under course of dissection, I have no
doubt my father would have been tried for
murder.

"Your most obedient servant,
"WILLIAM GAUNT."

From the documents read at the meeting,
convened by the magistrates and one hundred
and thirty of the clergy, gentry, and tradesmen
of North Shields, on the 9th of May,
1834, it appears that the missing youth,
having enlisted in the East India Company's
service, died of cholera, on the 12th of
November, 1832. The resolutions passed
were strongly expressive of sympathy for
the unmerited sufferings of the Gaunt family
for so many years; and of admiration for the
exemplary patience with which they had
borne them.

THE ROVING ENGLISHMAN.
CONCERNING A PAIR OF DEMONS.

DEEP in a valley at the foot of the mighty
Schneeberg, stands a little village of a few
scattered houses. The inhabitants are a rude
primitive set of people, full of wild legends
and strange uncouth poetry. Even the tide
of smug Vienna citizens that sets in every
summer towards the enticing spot, has not
yet quite spoilt it; and glimpses of old-world
manners and old-world people may be got here,
now and then, by a quiet traveller, which will
amply pay him for turning out of his way to
go there.

The name of the village is Buchberg. How
pleasantly the memory of it rises in my
mind, as I pause, pen in hand! First comes
the veteran of the neighbourhood, the
unforgotten Schultes; not unlike one of the figures
of a Dutch picture; a short, brown, healthy
old man. Then follow two of his colleagues
—Schmidl, who blows the horn; and one
Weidman, the laziest and most amusing of
guides. It was a strange, simple, uncouth,
piping, dancing, loveable company, in which
I paused a few days, far from the strife,
the turmoil, and sorrows of life.

Very near to Buchberg, at a place called
the "Schneebergerdörfel," there lived not
long ago an old man, the pleasure of whose
life was to accompany travellers up the
famous mountain, as their guide, philosopher,
and friend. He had gone with Emmel as far
as the famous Kaiserstein. In 1811 he had
pointed out the loveliest points of view to
Mösmer and Molitor, the two illustrators of
the Austrian Mont Blanc; some of whose
paintings were recently sent by the Emperor
of Austria to Queen Victoria, and which are
beautiful as ballads. But his great glory was
that of having been present at the visit of the
Emperor Francis, and having enjoyed the
honour of social intercourse with that
monarch. In preceding the Imperial party, his foot
had slipped, and a loose stone rolled back and
struck his Majesty. The Emperor reproached
him in a short but expressive address, and the
words were engraven for ever on his mind.

It is Sylvester Eve, a festival in Germany
among high and low, and our old friend is
seated in the midst of a large circle of
relations—young and old. The room is very
different to that of a cottage in England, and is of
considerable size; although rudely furnished.
They have all gathered round the ample
earthen stove, and are roasting chestnuts. The
heat is intense. In the city it would be stifling;
but here, chinks enough let in the air, and the
snow has fallen round the house in such heavy
masses, that you cannot see the glow of the
baking oven at the other end of the courtyard,
where supper is preparing. The old
guide's married daughter, his son-in-law, and
their children, ranging in size like the pipes
of an organ, form the members of the pleasant
circle round him.

The eldest of his grandchildren—named, in
the sweet provincial diminutive, "Loisl"—is
one of those peasant beauties of the fairer
order, with light hair, and brown healthy
complexion—childlike in her simplicity and
frank innocence. The type is fast wearing
out, and it is only in such out-of-the-way
places that one ever meets with it. Like her
mother, she wears the Buchberg peasant cap;
from the peculiar fashion of which learned
pens have tried to explain the origin of the
first settlers in the valley. How modest the
girl looks, in her graceful costume! One
hardly knows which pleases most, the dress
or the wearer. Perhaps, for a city beauty,
she would be thought to have too little
expression in those great blue earnest eyes, and
the lines of the mouth are a little too strongly
marked. But she has the pleasantest laugh
in the world; and is altogether a charming
little sweetheart for the Count's forester, not
to speak of the young woodman, who always
contrives to be going to mass at the same time
as "Loisl" on Sundays.

Supper is over, and the thrifty womankind
have cleared away the fragments; when the
mother raises her voice cheerily to the old
"Fellner Franz," and says, " Come, lieber
Ahn'l," (dear grandfather,) "we shall sit up
a little longer to-night. I have thrown a
new log on the fire, and here is your cup of
hot wine. If you ask grandfather prettily,
children, perhaps he will tell us a story."

"What can I tell you, children," answers
the old man, brightening up with a loquacious
look of great promise, "that I have not
already told you a hundred times? Of the
Turkish war in '89, where I was wounded; of
Kaiser Joseph, and how I saw him with my
own eyes, at Newstadt; of the French who
twice paid us a visit; of Kaiser Franz, or of
Prince Johann *, of Don Miguel, whose guide
I was one day, when the old fellow † was so

* The Archduke John, the darling of the peasantry,
from his domestic propensities, and country tastes.
† The Mountain.