town was in commotion, and every window and roof in the neighbourhood of the churchyard thronged with grave-looking citizens, who spent the interval in keen discussion regarding the possibility or impossibility of the things alleged in the watchmen’s report.
The bagpiper was true to his time, for at the first stroke of the eleventh hour his grave was seen to open, and its inmate instantly made his appearance with his pipes below his arm, and proceeded deliberately to his former station, where he began his tune. The ball-guests seemed to have been waiting the signal, for at the very first notes they came trooping forth from their graves and vaults, leaping and bounding over every thing which stood in their way with an agility many of them surely never possessed while denizens of the upper world. There were corpses and skeletons, shrouded and bare, great and small, leaping and skipping, wheeling and whirling around the piper, in time to the tunes he played, till midnight tolled, when the whole assembly instantly retired to rest. Of course, after such demonstration, the stoutest sceptic in Neisse could not gainsay the marvellous account of Master Wilibald’s freaks after death; but the mayor had no sooner quitted his station on the watch-tower, than he issued his warrant for the apprehension of the young painter, from whose examination he hoped to learn something which might enable him to put down the new and unheard-of nuisance.
Wido reminded the mayor of his breach of promise to Wilibald, and maintained with much spirit that it was solely in consequence of this conduct on his part, and his subsequent harsh treatment of the poor piper, that the latter now refused to remain quietly in his grave. This speech made a deep impression upon the assembled civic-dignities, who ordered the body of Master Wilibald to be instantly and respectfully removed to a decent part of the churchyard. But the sexton, to show his penetration on the occasion, took the bagpipe out of the coffin before he again deposited it in
2 L 2
