As I was leaving I saw what seemed like
garments hanging up in the back shop, and turned to have a look at
them. They were the kind of thing that Germans wear on their summer
walking tours--long shooting capes made of a green stuff they call
loden. I bought one, and a green felt hat and an alpenstock to keep it
company. Then wishing the old woman and her belongings a merry
Christmas, I departed and took the shortest cut out of the village.
There were one or two people about now, but they did not seem to notice
me.

I went into the woods again and walked for two miles till I halted for
breakfast. I was not feeling quite so fit now, and I did not make much
of my provisions, beyond eating a biscuit and some chocolate. I felt
very thirsty and longed for hot tea. In an icy pool I washed and with
infinite agony shaved my beard. That razor was the worst of its
species, and my eyes were running all the time with the pain of the
operation. Then I took off the postman's coat and cap, and buried them
below some bushes. I was now a clean-shaven German pedestrian with a
green cape and hat, and an absurd walking-stick with an iron-shod
end--the sort of person who roams in thousands over the Fatherland in
summer, but is a rarish bird in mid-winter.

The Tourists' Guide was a fortunate purchase, for it contained a big
map of Bavaria which gave me my bearings. I was certainly not forty
miles from the Danube--more like thirty. The road through the village
I had left would have taken me to it. I had only to walk due south and
I would reach it before night. So far as I could make out there were
long tongues of forest running down to the river, and I resolved to
keep to the woodlands. At the worst I would meet a forester or two,
and I had a good enough story for them. On the highroad there might be
awkward questions.

When I started out again I felt very stiff and the cold seemed to be
growing intense. This puzzled me, for I had not minded it much up to
now, and, being warm-blooded by nature, it never used to worry me. A
sharp winter night on the high-veld was a long sight chillier than
anything I had struck so far in Europe. But now my teeth were
chattering and the marrow seemed to be freezing in my bones.

The day had started bright and clear, but a wrack of grey clouds soon
covered the sky, and a wind from the east began to whistle. As I
stumbled along through the snowy undergrowth I kept longing for bright
warm p