the pointing finger of his host, betook himself towards the ruined
hermitage of Mr. Mopes the hermit.

For, Mr. Mopes, by suffering everything about him to go to ruin, and by
dressing himself in a blanket and skewer, and by steeping himself in soot
and grease and other nastiness, had acquired great renown in all that
country-side--far greater renown than he could ever have won for himself,
if his career had been that of any ordinary Christian, or decent
Hottentot. He had even blanketed and skewered and sooted and greased
himself, into the London papers. And it was curious to find, as Mr.
Traveller found by stopping for a new direction at this farm-house or at
that cottage as he went along, with how much accuracy the morbid Mopes
had counted on the weakness of his neighbours to embellish him. A mist
of home-brewed marvel and romance surrounded Mopes, in which (as in all
fogs) the real proportions of the real object were extravagantly
heightened. He had murdered his beautiful beloved in a fit of jealousy
and was doing penance; he had made a vow under the influence of grief; he
had made a vow under the influence of a fatal accident; he had made a vow
under the influence of religion; he had made a vow under the influence of
drink; he had made a vow under the influence of disappointment; he had
never made any vow, but "had got led into it" by the possession of a
mighty and most awful secret; he was enormously rich, he was stupendously
charitable, he was profoundly learned, he saw spectres, he knew and could
do all kinds of wonders. Some said he went out every night, and was met
by terrified wayfarers stalking along dark roads, others said he never
went out, some knew his penance to be nearly expired, others had positive
information that his seclusion was not a penance at all, and would never
expire but with himself. Even, as to the easy facts of how old he was,
or how long he had held verminous occupation of his blanket and skewer,
no consistent information was to be got, from those who must know if they