blue coat, and his boots and his hat and his
square shirt-collar, and without any extra
defence against the weather, walked coolly along
with his hands in his pockets: as if he lived
underground somewhere hard by, and had just
come up to show his friend the road.

"I'd have liked to have had a look at this
place, too," said the captain, "when there was
a monstrous sweep of water rolling over it,
dragging the powerful great stones along and
piling 'em atop of one another, and depositing
the foundations for all manner of superstitions.
Bless you! the old priests, smart mechanical
critturs as they were, never piled up many of
these stones. Water's the lever that moved
'em. When you see 'em thick and blunt
tewwards one point of the compass, and fined away
thin tewwards the opposite point, you may be as
good as moral sure that the name of the ancient
Druid that fixed 'em was Water."

The captain referred to some great blocks of
stone presenting this characteristic, which were
wonderfully balanced and heaped on one another,
on a desolate hill. Looking back at these, as
they stood out against the lurid glare of the
west, just then expiring, they were not unlike
enormous antediluvian birds, that had perched
there on crags and peaks, and had been petrified
there.

"But it's an interesting country," said the
captain, "—fact! It's old in the annals of
that said old Arch Druid, Water, and it's old
in the annals of the said old parson-critturs
too. It's a mighty interesting thing to set
your boot (as I did this day) on a rough honey-
combed old stone, with just nothing you can
name but weather visible upon it: which the
scholars that go about with hammers, chipping
pieces off the universal airth, find to be an
inscription, entreating prayers for the soul of
some for-ages-bust-up crittur of a governor that
over-taxed a people never heard of." Here the
captain stopped to slap his leg. "It's a mighty
interesting thing to come upon a score or two
of stones set up on end in a desert, some short,
some tall, some leaning here, some leaning there,
and to know that they were pop'larly supposed
—and may be still—to be a group of Cornish
men that got changed into that geological
formation for playing a game upon a Sunday. They
wouldn't have it in my country, I reckon, even
if they could get it—but it's very interesting."

In this, the captain, though it amused him,
was quite sincere. Quite as sincere as when he
added, after looking well about him: "That
fog-bank coming up as the sun goes down, will
spread, and we shall have to feel our way into
Lanrean full as much as see it."

All the way along, the young fisherman had
spoken at times to the captain, of his interrupted
hopes, and of the family good name, and of the
restitution that must be made, and of the
cherished plans of his heart so near attainment,
which must be set aside for it. In his simple
faith and honour, he seemed incapable of
entertaining the idea that it was within the bounds
of possibility to evade the doing of what their
inquiries should establish to be right. This
was very agreeable to Captain Jorgan, and won
his genuine admiration. Wherefore, he now
turned the discourse back into that channel,
and encouraged his companion to talk of Kitty,
and to calculate how many years it would take,
without a share in the fishery, to establish a
home for her, and to relieve his honest heart by
dwelling on its anxieties.

Meanwhile, it fell very dark, and the fog
became dense, though the wind howled at them and
bit them as savagely as ever. The captain had
carefully taken the bearings of Lanrean from the
map, and carried his pocket compass with him;
the young fisherman, too, possessed that kind of
cultivated instinct for shaping a course, which is
often found among men of such pursuits. But,
although they held a true course in the main, and
corrected it when they lost the road by the aid of
the compass and a light obtained with great
difficulty in the roomy depths of the captain's hat,
they could not help losing the road often. On
such occasions they would become involved in
the difficult ground of the spongy moor, and,
after making a laborious loop, would emerge
upon the road at some point they had passed
before they left it, and thus would have a good
deal of work to do twice over. But the young
fisherman was not easily lost, and the captain
(and his comb) would probably have turned up,
with perfect coolness and self-possession, at any
appointed spot on the surface of this globe.
Consequently, they were no more than retarded
in their progress to Lanrean, and arrived in that
small place at nine o'clock. By that time, the
captain's hat had fallen back over his ears and
rested on the nape of his neck; but he still had
his hands in his pockets, and showed no other
sign of dilapidation.

They had almost run against a low stone house
with red-curtained windows, before they knew
they had hit upon the little hotel, the King
Arthur's Arms. They could just descry through
the mist, on the opposite side of the narrow
road, other low stone buildings which were its
outhouses and stables; and somewhere overhead,
its invisible sign was being wrathfully
swung by the wind.

"Now, wait a bit," said the captain. "They
might be full here, or they might offer us
cold quarters. Consequently, the policy is to
take an observation, and, when we've found
the warmest room, walk right slap into it."

The warmest room was evidently that from
which fire and candle streamed reddest and
brightest, and from which the sound of voices
engaged in some discussion came out into the
night. Captain Jorgan having established the
bearings of this room, merely said to his young
friend, "Follow me!" and was in it, before King
Arthur's Arms had any notion that they enfolded
a stranger.

"Order, order, order!" cried several voices,
as the captain with his hat under his arm, stood
within the door he had opened.

"Gentlemen," said the captain, advancing,
"I am much beholden to you for the