This little alley by the _Rathhaus_, in which footsteps gave such a singular echo, had never, even within the recollection of the most ancient crow on the neighboring steeple of St. Nicholas's church, enjoyed such a reputation for uncanniness as in the last two months of this year, and the first two of the next. It was also observed that in no previous winter had the snow lain so deep in it, and it grew dark much earlier in the evening than had ever before been known. And Mother Möller, the old cake-woman in the _Rathhaus_ hall, who always hitherto, in the winter season, packed up her wares at the stroke of five, now did it regularly at half-past four, because, as she affirmed, just as it grew dark there was "what you might call a kind of corpsy smell about," and her old table-cloth flapped about in a way no natural table-cloth would do. On the other hand Father Rüterbusch, the night-watchman, asseverated that for his part he had not observed either in the hall or the alley anything out of the common, not even between twelve and one o'clock, which was the fashionable hour with ghosts, let alone at other times. Yet people were more disposed to accept the views of the old cake-woman than those of the still older night-watchman; as the first, though she took a nap now and then, still on the whole was more awake than asleep; while in regard to the other, the regular customers of the _Rathhaus_ cellar, who had to pass his post at night, maintained precisely the contrary. By these assertions they deeply wounded the good heart of Father Rüterbusch, but did not confute him. "For, d'ye see," he would argue, "you must know that a sworn night-watchman never goes to sleep, on any account; but it may happen that he pretends to be asleep, in order not to mortify certain gentlemen who would be ashamed if they knew the old man had his eye on their doings. And mark you, I am willing to be qualified to what I say, upon my oath of office; and none of them can say that. And even if many of them, for instance Rathscarpenter Karl Bobbin, come and go the same way every evening, that is to say every night, for nigh on to twenty years now, a habit is not an office, mark you; and I for my part have never heard, for example, that the customers of the cellar ever took any oath or were qualified in any manner, shape, or form; and yet it was only last Easter I celebrated my jubilee, for it was then fifty years I had held this place, and I went to school with Karl Bobbin's father, who was never of any account, for that matter." However, be that as it might, during the winter of '33-'34, there was but one opinion of the matter in Uselin; and that was, that if there _was_ anything queer about the Rathhaus alley, nobody need wonder at it, as things were.