We got directions for our guidance out of him during the day, and as soon
as it was dark he set off with us across the marshes, and led us at last on
to more trustworthy ground and told us how to go. We gave him money and
hearty thanks, and shook him by the hand and went on our way. The last
words we heard from him, out of the darkness, were the same as we heard
first in the darkness--"Blight him! Blight him! Blight him!" and if they
did another old man no harm they certainly seemed to afford great
satisfaction to this one.

All that night we walked steadily eastward, passing through sleeping
villages and by sleeping farmhouses, and meeting none who showed any desire
to question us. In the early morning I bought bread and cheese from a
sleepy wife at a little shop in a village that was just waking up, and we
ate as we walked, and slept in a haystack till late in the afternoon. We
tramped again all night, and long before daylight we smelt salt water, and
when the sun rose we were sitting on a cliff watching it come up out of the
sea.




CHAPTER XXVII

HOW WE CAME UPON A WHITED SEPULCHRE AND FELL INTO THE FIRE


We wandered a great way down that lonely coast before a fishing village
hove in sight. At regular intervals we came upon watchmen on the look-out
for invaders or smugglers, and to all such we gave wide berth, by a circuit
in the country or by dodging them on their beats. It was only towns we