turn me to my sheltering woods—my neighbour
oaks—my—other thingamies—and, fixing my
gaze upon some gnarled trunk, I—I shall—
think," said Bob.

"One mode of taking a course of bark!"
ventured to observe. "But even that source
of mental vigour may be exhausted. Then?"

"My resolution is unshaken," replied Bob,
with a mournful smile. "Out of the world I
go—on Wednesday fortnight."

"Well, my friend, I am sorry for this
determination, and the more so, as I cannot but feel
that the cause is most inadequate."

"/ am the best judge of that," said Bob.
"Harry—she was the only woman I ever
loved."

"But, dear old boy, did everybody who is
jilted take to the woods, what a sylvan population
we should have!"

"I am not influenced solely by the—the
circumstance to which you, not obscurely, refer,"
said Bob. "Harry, I am the victim of a
noble discontent. I am an ambitious man.
Possessed of talents above the average, but
rendered infructuous through a certain difficulty
of ascertaining in what direction they lie, I find
myself condemned to an insignificance abhorrent
to my soul. Were I rich, old fellow, all would
be well. My abilities would at once command
the respect they deserve. But here again I fail.
I have six hundred a year. Disgusting income!
Of all the peddling little prizes in fortune's
wheel, six hundred a year is the most
embarrassing. I wish it were practicable to toss up
with the blind goddess whether it should be six
thousand or nothing! You're for ever dodging
about the tail of it, neither actually out of debt,
nor plunging honestly into it. In embracing
solitude, I resign all the dreams of love and
ambition. I owe nothing. My very tailor is
paid. Disarmed, stingless, he melts into the
common herd, and is forgotten. My frame
will be covered by two gowns—my other needs,
by thirty pounds a year. The residue of my
property will accumulate, so as to form a fund
which, after my decease, will be devoted to
the outfit, biennially, of six hermits, of
disappointed views, but irreproachable character.
You will allow me to name you as one of the
trustees?"

I pressed my friend's hand in token of
acquiescence, and, shortly after, took my leave—
not (to say truth) without a painful suspicion
that the disappointment poor Lynn had
experienced had acted more unhealthily upon his
mind than his friends were aware.

Engagements prevented my revisiting London
for three weeks. I then found Lynn's rooms
empty and dismantled. He had, I was informed,
sold every individual article he possessed—save
only the clothes he stood in and his favourite
pipe—and departed, with the packing-case,
leaving no address whatever. It was manifest,
therefore, that he had actually carried his
singular project into effect.

This conclusion was shortly rendered certain,
by my receiving a letter from the recluse
himself. Although I could distinguish the postmark
of Sea Palling, it seemed to have made an
extended tour in Devon, Cornwall, and the
Scilly Isles, and was at least six weeks old when
it reached my hands.

Bob—I beg his pardon, Fra Roberto—wrote
in the most enthusiastic terms of his new mode
of life. His bower was a woodcutter's
abandoned hut, situated in an oaken glade, well
sheltered from the colder breezes, yet within a
few minutes' walk of points which commanded
a noble stretch of sea, while, in other directions,
a tolerably dense woodland district invited the
recluse to those sylvan contemplations from
which he expected to derive such solace.

The seclusion, he declared, was all he could
possibly desire—the nearest hamlet being four
miles distant, and, so far as he, Bob, knew, the
nearest dwelling not within three.

"Quantock," continued the solitary, "has
been most kind, prohibiting his keepers, woodmen,
&c., from approaching my haunts, while he
gives me 'carte blanche' to do what I please in
the forest. I am, in fact, 'monarch of all I
survey,' and have literally seen nothing but 'the
fowl and the brute,' including, in the latter term,
a poaching vagabond whom, thinking him belated,
I welcomed to my cell. I had, it happened,
nothing but my own frugal feast—a lettuce and
some blackberries, with some excellent water
—to set before him. With this 'guiltless' fare
he did not seem highly satisfied, and, probably as
an indemnification, when he departed, took away
my boots, and, what I feel severely, my stewpan.
Irrespective of this little accident, I am as
happy as possible. I have not a fear or a care
in the world, and the confidence that I shall
never again see a human face, except yours, my
friend, and, say, a couple more, completes my
felicity. Come and witness it.—ROBERTO.
P.S. You will remember the directions I gave
you as to the road. Once within the Quantock
property, steer S.S.W. half W. Perhaps the
enclosed plan of sheep-tracks may help you
across the hills. But, for goodness' sake, no
guide. My retreat must not be known."

The enclosed "plan" resembled nothing so
much as the skeleton of an umbrella with the
ribs entangled. In the centre was a huge
(disconnected) blot, meant, I suppose, to represent
the hermit's abode.

Now, I had agreed to spend some weeks,
that summer, yachting with a friend, and as
Smijthe (he was very particular about his j)
was rather addicted to dawdling about the
coast, within easy reach of fresh butter and the
Times, I expected that an opportunity might
occur of attacking Sea Palling on its water-
face. It did.

On a lovely noon in August we ran into a
small estuary, flanked by higher cliffs than I had
thought existed in those parts, and dropped
anchor off a little village. Its only visible
inhabitant—an exceedingly infirm and ancient
mariner—paddled promptly off in a canoe, and
asked if we wanted any nice fresh fish—heaving
into view, as a temptation, what we should have