in his native
German. It began to be a little tedious. After giving the direction,
'Home!' I turned to go down the cross-road into the valley.

With a despairing gesture, Johann turned his horses towards Munich. I
leaned on my stick and looked after him. He went slowly along the road
for a while: then there came over the crest of the hill a man tall and
thin. I could see so much in the distance. When he drew near the
horses, they began to jump and kick about, then to scream with terror.
Johann could not hold them in; they bolted down the road, running away
madly. I watched them out of sight, then looked for the stranger, but
I found that he, too, was gone.

With a light heart I turned down the side road through the deepening
valley to which Johann had objected. There was not the slightest
reason, that I could see, for his objection; and I daresay I tramped
for a couple of hours without thinking of time or distance, and
certainly without seeing a person or a house. So far as the place was
concerned, it was desolation itself. But I did not notice this
particularly till, on turning a bend in the road, I came upon a
scattered fringe of wood; then I recognised that I had been impressed
unconsciously by the desolation of the region through which I had
passed.

I sat down to rest myself, and began to look around. It struck me that
it was considerably colder than it had been at the commencement of my
walk--a sort of sighing sound seemed to be around me, with, now and
then, high overhead, a sort of muffled roar. Looking upwards I noticed
that great thick clouds were drifting rapidly across the sky from
North to South at a great height. There were signs of coming storm in
some lofty stratum of the air. I was a little chilly, and, thinking
that it was the sitting still after the exercise of walking, I resumed
my journey.

The ground I passed over was now much more picturesque. There were no
striking objects that the eye might single out; but in all there was a
charm of beauty. I took little heed of time and it was only when the
deepening twilight forced itself upon me that I began to think of how
I should find my way home. The brightness of the day had gone. The air
was cold, and the drifting of clouds high overhead was more marked.
They were accompanied by a sort of far-away rushing sound, through
which seemed to come at intervals that mysterious cry which the driver
had said came from a wolf. For a while I hesitated. I had