Page:Magdalen by J S Machar.pdf/105

 in the wing of the castle, where the thermometer appeared in the window. He was advanced in years, solemn and stern, and people avoided him; although the poor and the children, by an old custom, kissed his hand when they came near him. He was an important personage in the life of that town. He was not active in the townhall,—for that he had not time enough, having had the care of the estate and the office of district elder for twenty-five years; but, being an intimate friend of the burgomaster’s, he was an adviser in all complicated affairs.

The Free Citizen often made profane allusions to this: the town’s head, it said, was in the townhall, but the Holy Ghost was in the castle. In the feuilleton it hinted quite openly between the lines that the superintendent was even more intimate with the fat wife of the burgomaster,—however, the whole town saw nothing incriminating in that.

A new bridge runs over the Elbe.