As I approached it became more and more wonderful to me that any one should live there at all, for the bog grew worse rather than better, and in the occasional gleams of moonshine I could make out that the water lay in glimmering pools all round the low dark cottage from which the light was breaking.  I could see now that it shone through a small square window.  As I approached the gleam was suddenly obscured, and there in a yellow frame appeared the round black outline of a man’s head peering out into the darkness.  A second time it appeared before I reached the cottage, and there was something in the stealthy manner in which it peeped and whisked away, and peeped once more, which filled me with surprise, and with a certain vague apprehension.

So cautious were the movements of this sentinel, and so singular the position of his watch-house, that I determined, in spite of my misery, to see something more of him before I trusted myself to the shelter of his roof.  And, indeed, the amount of shelter which I might hope for was not very great, for as I drew softly nearer I could see that the light from within was beating through at several points, and that the whole cottage was in the most crazy state of disrepair.  For a moment I paused, thinking that even the salt-marsh might perhaps be a safer resting-place for the night than the headquarters of some desperate smuggler, for such I conjectured that this lonely dwelling must be.  The scud, however, had covered the moon once more, and the darkness was so pitchy black that I felt that I might reconnoitre a little more closely without fear of discovery.  Walking on tiptoe I approached the little window and looked in.

What I saw reassured me vastly.  A small wood fire was crackling in one of those old-fashioned country grates, and beside it was seated a strikingly handsome young man, who was reading earnestly out of a fat little book.  He had an oval, olive-tinted face, with long black hair, ungathered in a queue, and there was something of the poet or of the artist in his whole appearance.  The sight of that refined face, and of the warm yellow firelight which beat upon it, was a very cheering one to a cold and famished traveller.  I stood for an instant gazing at him, and noticing the way in which his full and somewhat loose-fitting lower lip quivered continually, as if he were repeating to himself that which he was reading.  I was still looking at him when he put his book down upon the table and approached the window.  Catching a glimpse of my figure in the darkness he called out something which I could not hear, and waved his hand in a gesture of welcome.  An instant later the door flew open, and there was his thin tall figure standing upon the threshold, with his skirts flapping in the wind.

‘My dear friends,’ he cried, peering out into the gloom with his hand over his eyes to screen them from the salt-laden wind and driving sand, ’I had given you up.  I thought that you were never coming.  I’ve been waiting for two hours.’