im as long as my
time allowed, and then dashed on to recover the lost ground. Passing at
a great pace a neat road-side inn, singing the while, a jolly red face
blazed out upon me from the lattice window. "Ei da! You are merry.
Whither so fast?"--"To Berlin."--"Wait an instant and I'm with you." Two
odd figures tumbled almost at the end of the instant out of the house
door. One a burly man with a red face and a large moustache, the other a
chalky young man with a pair of Wellington boots slung round his neck.
They were both native Prussians on the way from Hamburg to Berlin, having
come through Magdeburg, travelling, they declared, at the rate of about
six-and-twenty English miles a day. These Prussians will talk; but at
whatever rate my friends might have travelled, they were nearly dead
beat. They had sent on their knapsacks by the waggon, finding them
unmercifully heavy. The stout traveller had a white sack over his
shoulders, his trousers tucked up to his knees, and his Wellington boots
cut down into ankle-jacks to ease his chafed shins, that were already
dotted with hectic red spots from over-exertion. His young friend
carried his best Wellingtons about his neck, and wore a pair of cracked
boots, through which I could see the colour, in some places, of his dark
blue socks, in other places of his dark red flesh. Both were lamed by
the same cause, inflammation of the front of the leg, in which part I
also had begun to feel some smartings.

We got on merrily, in spite of our legs, and overtook two very young
travellers, whom I recognised as the flutterers before the presence of
the magistrate at Perleberg. One proved to be a bookbinder, the other a
wood-turner. They were fresh upon their travels, and their clean white
blouses, the arrangements of their knapsacks, and the little neatnesses
and comforts here and there about them, showed that they had not yet
travelled many days' march from a mother's care. Then we toiled on,
until our elder friend grew worse and worse about his feet, laughing and
joking himself out of pain as he was able. Finally, he could go no
farther, and we waited until we could send him forward in a passing cart.

He being dispatched, we travelled on, I and my friend with the
boot-necklace, till we met a little crowd of men in blouses, little queer
caps, knapsacks, and ragged beards, all carrying sticks. They were
travelling boys like ourselves, bound from Berlin to Hamburg. "Halloo!