the offing the sole other moving thing in the solitary landscape,
like a hunted creature he sped, his footsteps melting and vanishing
behind him in the half quicksand.

Where the curve of the water line turned northward at the root of
the promontory, six or eight fishing boats were drawn up on the
beach in various stages of existence. One was little more than
half built, the fresh wood shining against the background of dark
rock. Another was newly tarred; its sides glistened with the rich
shadowy brown, and filled the air with a comfortable odour. Another
wore age long neglect on every plank and seam; half its props
had sunk or decayed, and the huge hollow leaned low on one side,
disclosing the squalid desolation of its lean ribbed and naked
interior, producing all the phantasmic effect of a great swampy
desert; old pools of water overgrown with a green scum, lay in
the hollows between its rotting timbers, and the upper planks were
baking and cracking in the sun. Near where they lay a steep path
ascended the cliff, whence through grass and ploughed land, it led
across the promontory to the fishing village of Scaurnose, which
lay on the other side of it. There the mad laird, or Mad Humpy, as
he was called by the baser sort, often received shelter, chiefly
from the family of a certain Joseph Mair, one of the most respectable
inhabitants of the place.

But the way he now pursued lay close under the cliffs of the
headland, and was rocky and difficult. He passed the boats, going
between them and the cliffs, at a footpace, with his eyes on the
ground, and not even a glance at the two men who were at work on
the unfinished boat. One of them was his friend, Joseph Mair. They
ceased their work for a moment to look after him.