The night air of a sharp season obliged us to keep active, yet we were not willing to get far away from the torches.

But after a time they were hidden; then we saw one moving ahead.

The holder of it proved to be a workman of the gang, and between us and him the strangest parley ensued.

He repeated the word morgen, and we insisted on zimmer and bett.
'He takes us for twin Caspar Hausers,' sighed Temple.
'Nein,' said the man, and, perhaps enlightened by hearing a foreign tongue, beckoned for us to step at his heels.
His lodging was a woodman's hut.

He offered us bread to eat, milk to drink, and straw to lie on: we desired nothing more, and were happy, though the bread was black, the milk sour, the straw mouldy.
Our breakfast was like a continuation of supper, but two little girls of our host, whose heads were cased in tight-fitting dirty linen caps, munched the black bread and drank the sour milk so thankfully, while fixing solemn eyes of wonder upon us, that to assure them we were the same sort of creature as themselves we pretended to relish the stuff.
Rather to our amazement we did relish it.