And so, in haste to save their
lives (aye, and their souls!—and here he crossed himself) those who
were left fled away to other places, where the living lived, and the
dead were dead and not—not something. He was evidently afraid to speak
the last words. As he proceeded with his narration, he grew more and
more excited. It seemed as if his imagination had got hold of him, and
he ended in a perfect paroxysm of fear—white-faced, perspiring,
trembling and looking round him, as if expecting that some dreadful
presence would manifest itself there in the bright sunshine on the open
plain. Finally, in an agony of desperation, he cried:

“Walpurgis nacht!” and pointed to the carriage for me to get in. All my
English blood rose at this, and, standing back, I said:

“You are afraid, Johann—you are afraid. Go home; I shall return alone;
the walk will do me good.” The carriage door was open. I took from the
seat my oak walking-stick—which I always carry on my holiday
excursions—and closed the door, pointing back to Munich, and said, “Go
home, Johann—Walpurgis-nacht doesn’t concern Englishmen.”

The horses were now more restive than ever, and Johann was trying to
hold them in, while excitedly imploring me not to do anything so
foolish. I pitied the poor fellow, he was deeply in earnest; but all
the same I could not help laughing. His English was quite gone now. In
his anxiety he had forgotten that his only means of making me
understand was to talk my language, so he jabbered away 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 said I would
see the deserted village, so on I went, and presently came on a wide
stretch of open country, shut in by hills all around. Their sides were
covered with trees which spread down to the plain, dotting, in clumps,
the gentler slopes and hollows which showed here and there. I followed
with my eye the winding of the road, and saw that it curved close to
one of the densest of these clumps and was lost behind it. As I looked there came a cold shiver in the air, and the snow began to
fall. I thought of the miles and miles of bleak country I had passed,
and then hurried on to seek the shelter of the wood in front. Darker
and darker grew the sky, and faster and heavier fell the snow, till the
earth before and around me was a glistening white carpet the further
edge of which was lost in misty vagueness. The road was here but crude,
and when on the level its boundaries were not so marked, as when it
passed through the cuttings; and in a little while I found that I must
have strayed from it, for I missed underfoot the hard surface, and my
feet sank deeper in the grass and moss. Then the wind grew stronger and
blew with ever increasing force, till I was fain to run before it. The
air became icy-cold, and in spite of my exercise I began to suffer. The
snow was now falling so thickly and whirling around me in such rapid
eddies that I could hardly keep my eyes open. Every now and then the
heavens were torn asunder by vivid lightning, and in the flashes I
could see ahead of me a great mass of trees, chiefly yew and cypress
all heavily coated with snow. I was soon amongst the shelter of the trees, and there, in comparative
silence, I could hear the rush of the wind high overhead. Presently the
blackness of the storm had become merged in the darkness of the night. By-and-by the storm seemed to be passing away: it now only came in
fierce puffs or blasts. At such moments the weird sound of the wolf
appeared to be echoed by many similar sounds around me. Now and again, through the black mass of drifting cloud, came a
straggling ray of moonlight, which lit up the expanse, and showed me
that I was at the edge of a dense mass of cypress and yew trees. As the
snow had ceased to fall, I walked out from the shelter and began to
investigate more closely. It appeared to me that, amongst so many old
foundations as I had passed, there might be still standing a house in
which, though in ruins, I could find some sort of shelter for a while. As I skirted the edge of the copse, I found that a low wall encircled
it, and following this I presently found an opening. Here the cypresses
formed an alley leading up to a square mass of some kind of building. Just as I caught sight of this, however, the drifting clouds obscured
the moon, and I passed up the path in darkness. The wind must have
grown colder, for I felt myself shiver as I walked; but there was hope
of shelter, and I groped my way blindly on. I stopped, for there was a sudden stillness.