A railway line ran through the village. After crossing this, I should have to trust to my guiding star and to my ability to work across-country.
Instead of the level crossing I was looking for, I came unexpectedly upon a tunnel in a very high embankment. With bated breath I tiptoed through, more than half expecting to meet a sentry on the other side. The footpath which emerged from it proved an unreliable guide. It soon petered out and left me stranded in front of a barbed-wire fence and a ditch. The cross-country stretch was on.
The going over plowed fields was easy in comparison, but they formed only a part of the country I was traveling over. Frequent patches of forest forced me to skirt them, with time lost on the other side to make the necessary corrections. Repeatedly I sank half-way to my knees into slough and water. Several casts were often necessary to get round these places, for, overgrown with weeds, and in the darkness, the swampy pieces looked like firm meadows. For a time, a sort of wall formed of rough stones accompanied me, with marshy ground on one side and forest on the other. It seemed to run in all directions. As soon as I lost it, I came upon it again. I kept going as fast as possible all the time; yet hour after hour passed, and still the bewildering procession of woods and fields, swamps and meadows continued.
A phenomenon of which I was ignorant at the time, but which is well known to sailors, kept me busy conjecturing. It is an impression one gets at night, on level ground, or at sea, that one is going decidedly up-hill. In my case this introduced a disturbing factor into my calculations as to my position.
After tacking through a forest over checker-board clearings the meaning of which was hidden from me, for they were hardly paths or roads, I came out upon a path, and heard water bubbling out of the bank on my right. “More haste less speed. Take it easy,” I murmured to myself, dropping the haversack. Then I bent down to the spring and, having drunk as much as I needed, and eaten a mouthful of food, I did some of the hardest thinking of my life.
So far as I recollect, my watch showed just 3:20 A.M. I went minutely over all my movements since leaving Klein Recken. Although the road, which I expected would lie across my course, had not yet materialized, I was confident that I had kept my direction fairly well. It was the impossibility of calculating one’s speed across-country which caused the uncertainty as to my whereabouts.
Fortunately, there was no doubt that a turnpike was not many miles to the north of me. To reach it, and thus ascertain my position, meant leaving the present route to the frontier. With less than two hours of darkness before the dawn, which would force me into hiding, the former factor was of far greater importance than the latter.
My nerves had been getting a little shaky under the stress. I had to press my hands to my head in order to think logically, and to exert all my will-power to keep my heart steady. Oh, for a companion! The effort cleared my brain and soothed me. I was almost cheerful when I went on.
Opposite a farmhouse, the path divided and my way became a miry and deeply rutted cart track. Past another farm, it entered a swampy meadow through a gate and disappeared. Savage at being tricked again, I wheeled round to look for the other fork of the track, but was arrested by seeing a light in the window of the farmhouse where a big dog had given the alarm when I passed. This was the last straw. Clenching my teeth, I crouched behind the hedge, an insensate fury making my ears sing. For the moment, having lost all control of myself, I was more than ready to meet man or dog, or both, and fight it out on the spot. But that feeling passed quickly.
The noise of a door being opened came to my ears. A lantern was borne from the house and obscured again. Another door opened, and the footsteps of a horse sounded on cobbles, followed by the jingling of harness. Then a cart started out into the dark. Where a cart could go there must be a road; so I followed after, stumbling over ruts and splashing through puddles, and running when the horse broke into a trot.