ristmas-eve in the cloister of
Pfalzel. A little company of pilgrims, less than a score of men, were
travelling slowly northward through the wide forest that rolled over the
hills of central Germany.

At the head of the band marched Winfried, clad in a tunic of fur, with
his long black robe girt high above his waist, so that it might not
hinder his stride. His hunter's boots were crusted with snow. Drops of
ice sparkled like jewels along the thongs that bound his legs. There
were no other ornaments of his dress except the bishop's cross hanging
on his breast, and the silver clasp that fastened his cloak about his
neck. He carried a strong, tall staff in his hand, fashioned at the top
into the form of a cross.

Close beside him, keeping step like a familiar comrade, was the young
Prince Gregor. Long marches through the wilderness had stretched his
legs and broadened his back, and made a man of him in stature as well as
in spirit. His jacket and cap were of wolf-skin, and on his shoulder he
carried an axe, with broad, shining blade. He was a mighty woodsman
now, and could make a spray of chips fly around him as he hewed his way
through the trunk of a pine-tree.

Behind these leaders followed a pair of teamsters, guiding a rude
sledge, loaded with food and the equipage of the camp, and drawn by
two big, shaggy horses, blowing thick clouds of steam from their frosty
nostrils. Tiny icicles hung from the hairs on their lips. Their flanks
were smoking. They sank above the fetlocks at every step in the soft
snow.

Last of all came the rear guard, armed with bows and javelins. It was no
child's play, in those days, to cross Europe afoot.

The weird woodland, sombre and illimitable, covered hill and vale,
table-land and mountain-peak. There were wide moors where the wolves
hunted in packs as if the devil drove them, and tangled thickets where
the lynx and the boar made their lairs. Fierce bears lurked among the
rocky passes, and had not yet learned to fear the face of man. The
gloomy recesses of the forest gave shelter to inhabitants who were
still more cruel and dangerous than beasts of prey,--outlaws and sturdy
robbers and mad were-wolves and bands of wandering pillagers.

The pilgrim who would pass from the mouth of the Tiber to the mouth of
the Rhine must trust in God and keep his arrows loose in the quiver.

The travellers were surrounded by an ocean of trees, so vast, so full
of endless billows, that it seemed to be