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