“And that?” said another man.

“I was a young man at the time,” said the narrator, drawing at his pipe and glancing good-humouredly at the company.  “I, had just come back from China, and my own people being away I went down into the country to invite myself to stay with an uncle.  When I got down to the place I found it closed and the family in the South of France; but as they were due back in a couple of days I decided to put up at the Royal George, a very decent inn, and await their return.

“The first day I passed well enough; but in the evening the dulness of the rambling old place, in which I was the only visitor, began to weigh upon my spirits, and the next morning after a late breakfast I set out with the intention of having a brisk day’s walk.

“I started off in excellent spirits, for the day was bright and frosty, with a powdering of snow on the iron-bound roads and nipped hedges, and the country had to me all the charm of novelty.  It was certainly flat, but there was plenty of timber, and the villages through which I passed were old and picturesque.

“I lunched luxuriously on bread and cheese and beer in the bar of a small inn, and resolved to go a little further before turning back.  When at length I found I had gone far enough, I turned up a lane at right angles to the road I was passing, and resolved to find my way back by another route.  It is a long lane that has no turning, but this had several, each of which had turnings of its own, which generally led, as I found by trying two or three of them, into the open marshes.  Then, tired of lanes, I resolved to rely upon the small compass which hung from my watch chain and go across country home.

“I had got well into the marshes when a white fog, which had been for some time hovering round the edge of the ditches, began gradually to spread.  There was no escaping it, but by aid of my compass I was saved from making a circular tour and fell instead into frozen ditches or stumbled over roots in the grass.  I kept my course, however, until at four o’clock, when night was coming rapidly up to lend a hand to the fog, I was fain to confess myself lost.

“The compass was now no good to me, and I wandered about miserably, occasionally giving a shout on the chance of being heard by some passing shepherd or farmhand.  At length by great good luck I found my feet on a rough road driven through the marshes, and by walking slowly and tapping with my stick managed to keep to it.  I had followed it for some distance when I heard footsteps approaching me.

“We stopped as we met, and the new arrival, a sturdy-looking countryman, hearing of my plight, walked back with me for nearly a mile, and putting me on to a road gave me minute instructions how to reach a village some three miles distant.

“I was so tired that three miles sounded like ten, and besides that, a little way off from the road I saw dimly a lighted window.  I pointed it out, but my companion shuddered and looked round him uneasily.