s.

I had now come some twelve miles from my starting-place, and it was
midnight. The plain, the level road (which often rose a little), and
the dank air of the river began to oppress me with fatigue. I was not
disturbed by this, for I had intended to break these nights of
marching by occasional repose, and while I was in the comfort of
cities--especially in the false hopes that one got by reading books--I
had imagined that it was a light matter to sleep in the open. Indeed,
I had often so slept when I had been compelled to it in Manoeuvres,
but I had forgotten how essential was a rug of some kind, and what a
difference a fire and comradeship could make. Thinking over it all,
feeling my tiredness, and shivering a little in the chill under the
moon and the clear sky, I was very ready to capitulate and to sleep in
bed like a Christian at the next opportunity. But there is some
influence in vows or plans that escapes our power of rejudgement. All
false calculations must be paid for, and I found, as you will see,
that having said I would sleep in the open, I had to keep to it in
spite of all my second thoughts.

I passed one village and then another in which everything was dark,
and in which I could waken nothing but dogs, who thought me an enemy,
till at last I saw a great belt of light in the fog above the Moselle.
Here there was a kind of town or large settlement where there were
ironworks, and where, as I thought, there would be houses open, even
after midnight. I first found the old town, where just two men were
awake at some cooking work or other. I found them by a chink of light
streaming through their door; but they gave me no hope, only advising
me to go across the river and try in the new town where the forges and
the ironworks were. 'There,' they said, 'I should certainly find a
bed.'

I crossed the bridge, being now much too weary to notice anything,
even the shadowy hills, and the first thing I found was a lot of
waggons that belonged to a caravan or fair. Here some men were awake,
but when I suggested that they should let me sleep in their little
houses on wheels, they told me it was never done; that it was all they
could do to pack in themselves; that they had no straw; that they were
guarded by dogs; and generally gave me to understand (though without
violence or unpoliteness) that I looked as though I were the man to
steal their lions and tigers. They told me, however, that without
doubt I should find