I took the newspaper to the Countess Stephen Repey, and showed it to her.
"Fancy," she said, when she had read the case through, "and such a good dancer as he was, too."
III
THE SHERIFF OF CASCHAU—A FRAGMENT OF AN OLD CHRONICLE[11]
[11] The idea of this story was subsequently expanded into the novel "Pretty Michal."
It happened the same year that, in the place of old Tobias Kesmarki, the hundred electors of the city of Caschau, to wit, forty-five Hungarians, forty Germans, and fifteen Wends, after due deliberation and by common consent, elected as Sheriff his Honour Michael Dóronczius, as being a man of understanding and blameless life, and respected by all men.
The hundred burgesses, having so done, went forth in solemn procession, headed by their Honours the Fürmenders[12] and the Conrector, to the burial-ground outside the gates, where the whole ground was thickly strewn with straw, it being Water Cross Day,[13] when it is sore cold, and the feet of men grow numb in the very council chamber.
[12] Guardians of the orphans and poor.
[13] The Feast of the Epiphany.
But it was the custom that the newly elected Sheriff should always be dug into his office in the churchyard, where humanity is least of all disturbed by official cares, nay, where, rather, the bulging tombs all around bid him remember that righteousness and good deeds alone abide upon the earth, while all else turns to dust.