hope. The watch of a ship which has wandered from her course feels some
such emotion when he cries, "Land ho!"

He hurried his steps.

At length, then, he was near mankind. He would soon be amidst living
creatures. There was no longer anything to fear. There glowed within him
that sudden warmth--security; that out of which he was emerging was
over; thenceforward there would no longer be night, nor winter, nor
tempest. It seemed to him that he had left all evil chances behind him.
The infant was no longer a burden. He almost ran.

His eyes were fixed on the roofs. There was life there. He never took
his eyes off them. A dead man might gaze thus on what might appear
through the half-opened lid of his sepulchre. There were the chimneys of
which he had seen the smoke.

No smoke arose from them now. He was not long before he reached the
houses. He came to the outskirts of a town--an open street. At that
period bars to streets were falling into disuse.

The street began by two houses. In those two houses neither candle nor
lamp was to be seen; nor in the whole street; nor in the whole town, so
far as eye could reach. The house to the right was a roof rather than a
house; nothing could be more mean. The walls were of mud, the roof was
of straw, and there was more thatch than wall. A large nettle, springing
from the bottom of the wall, reached the roof. The hovel had but one
door, which was like that of a dog-kennel; and a window, which was but a
hole. All was shut up. At the side an inhabited pig-sty told that the
house was also inhabited.