midday
Well set up as these city lads were , walking had never been their accustomed exercise . The interesting Taunus mountains , which to-day constitute an exercise ground full of delights to the pedestrian , forming , as they do , practically a suburb of Frankfort , were at that time an unexplored wilderness , whose forests were infested by roving brigands , where no man ventured except at the risk of an untimely grave . The mediæval townsman rarely trusted himself very far outside the city gates , and our enterprising marauders , whom to outward view seemed stalwart enough to stand great fatigue , proved so soft under the hot sun along the shadeless road that by the time they reached Breckenheim , barely six leagues from Frankfort , there was a mopping of brows and a general feeling that the limit of endurance had been reached . At Breckenheim Roland called a halt for midday refreshment , and he was compelled to wait nearly half an hour until the last straggler of his woebegone crew limped from the road on to the greensward in front of the _ Weinstaube _ which had been selected for a feeding-place . Black bread and a coarse kind of country cheese were the only provisions obtainable , but of these eatables there was an ample supply , and , better than all to the jaded wayfarers , wine in abundance , of good quality , too , for Breckenheim stands little more than a league to the north of the celebrated Hochheim . The wanderers came in by ones and twos , and sank down upon the benches before the tavern , or sprawled at full length on the short grass , where Kurzbold and his three friends dropped promptly off into sleep . A more dejected and amenable gang even Roland could not have wished to command .