e a feature.' While
I said this, I could not help confessing that I had as lief my present
excursion had been also in a conveyance.

'Forwaerts! fort, und immer fort!'

hummed I, remembering Koerner's song; and taking it for my motto, on I
went at a good pace. It needed all my powers as a pedestrian, however,
to face the mountain, for such I could see it was that I was now
ascending; the pathway, too, less trodden than below, was encumbered
with loose stones, and the trees which lined the way on either side
gradually became thinner and rarer, and at last ceased altogether,
exposing me to the cold blast which swept from time to time across the
barren heath with a chill that said October was own brother to November.
Three hours and a half did I toil along, when at last the conviction
came over me that I must have taken the wrong road. This could not
possibly be the way to Spa; indeed, I had great doubts that it led
anywhere. I mounted a little rock, and took a survey of the bleak
mountain-side; but nothing could I see that indicated that the hand of
man had ever laboured in that wild region. Fern and heath, clumps of
gorse and misshapen rocks, diversified the barren surface on every side,
and I now seemed to have gained the summit, a vast tableland spreading
away for miles. I sat down to consider what was best to be done. The
thought of retracing so many leagues of way was very depressing; and yet
what were my chances if I went forward?

Ah, thought I, why did not some benevolent individual think of erecting
lighthouses inland? What a glorious invention would it have been! Just
think of the great mountain districts which lie in the very midst
of civilisation, pathless, trackless, and unknown, where a benighted
traveller may perish within the very sound of succour, if he but knew
where to seek it. How cheering to the wayworn traveller as he plods
along his weary road, to lift from time to time his eyes to the
guide-star in the distance! Had the monks been in the habit of going
out in the dark, there's little doubt they'd have persuaded some good
Catholics to endow some institutions like this. How well they knew how
to have their chapels and convents erected! I'm not sure but I'd vow a
little lighthouse myself to the Virgin, if I could only catch a glimpse
of a gleam of light this moment.

Just then I thought I saw something twinkle, far away across the heath.
I climbed up on the rock, and looked steadily in the di