I kissed this letter and the hermit's grave many thousand times, and started on my way to seek for mankind. Yet before I could find them I journeyed straight on for two whole days, and when night overtook me, sought out a hollow tree for my shelter, and my food was naught but beech-nuts which I picked up on the way: but on the third day I came to a pretty open field near Gelnhausen, and there I enjoyed a veritable banquet, for the whole place was full of wheatsheaves which the peasants, being frightened away after the great battle of Nördlingen, had for my good fortune not been able to carry off. Inside a sheaf I set up my tent, for 'twas cruel cold, and filled my belly with the ears of corn which I rubbed in my hands: and such a meal I had not enjoyed for a long time.
_Chap. xix._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS WAS CAPTURED BY HANAU AND HANAU BY SIMPLICISSIMUS
When 'twas day I fed myself again with wheat, and thereafter betook myself to Gelnhausen, and there I found the gates open and partly burnt, yet half barricaded with dung. So I went in, but was ware of no living creature there. Indeed the streets were strewn here and there with dead, some of whom were stripped to their shirts, some stark naked. This was a terrifying spectacle, as any man can imagine. I, in my simplicity, could not guess what mishap had brought the place to such a plight. But not long after I learned that the Imperialists had surprised a few of Weimar's folk there. And hardly had I gone two-stones'-throw into the town when I had seen enough: so I turned me about and went across the meadows, and presently I came to a good road which brought me to the fine fortress of Hanau. When I came to the first sentries I tried to pass; but two musqueteers made at me, who seized me and took me off to their guard-room.