In an instant he was down again and back at the door.
'Who are you?' he cried, in a voice which seemed to me to be thrilling with some strong emotion.
'I am a traveller, and have lost my way.' There was a pause as if he were thinking what course he should pursue.
'You will find little here to tempt you to stay,' said he at last.
'I am weary and spent, sir; and surely you will not refuse me shelter. I have been wandering for hours in the salt-marsh.'
'Did you meet anyone there?' he asked eagerly.
'No.'
'Stand back a little from the door. This is a wild place, and the times are troublous. A man must take some precautions.'
I took a few steps back, and he then opened the door sufficiently to allow his head to come through. He said nothing, but he looked at me for a long time in a very searching manner.
'What is your name?'
'Louis Laval,' said I, thinking that it might sound less dangerous in this plebeian form.
'Whither are you going?'
'I wish to reach some shelter.'
'You are from England?'
'I am from the coast.'
He shook his head slowly to show me how little my replies had satisfied him.
'You cannot come in here,' said he.
'But surely--'
'No, no, it is impossible.'
'Show me then how to find my way out of the marsh.'
'It is easy enough. If you go a few hundred paces in that direction you will perceive the lights of a village. You are already almost free of the marsh.'
He stepped a pace or two from the door in order to point the way for me, and then turned upon his heel. I had already taken a stride or two away from him and his inhospitable hut, when be suddenly called after me.
'Come, Monsieur Laval,' said he, with quite a different ring in his voice; 'I really cannot permit you to leave me upon so tempestuous a night. A warm by my fire and a glass of brandy will hearten you upon your way.'
You may think that I did not feel disposed to contradict him, though I could make nothing of this sudden and welcome change in his manner.
'I am much obliged to you, sir,' said I.
And I followed him into the hut.
CHAPTER III
THE RUINED COTTAGE
It was delightful to see the glow and twinkle of the fire and to escape from the wet wind and the numbing cold, but my curiosity had already risen so high about this lonely man and his singular dwelling that my thoughts ran rather upon that than upon my personal comfort. There was his remarkable appearance, the fact that he should be awaiting company within that miserable ruin in the heart of the morass at so sinister an hour, and finally the inexplicable incident of the chimney, all of which excited my imagination. It was beyond my comprehension why he should at one moment charge me sternly to continue my journey, and then, in almost the same breath, invite me most cordially to seek the shelter of his hut. On all these points I was keenly on the alert for an explanation. Yet I endeavoured to conceal my feelings, and to assume the air of a man who finds everything quite natural about him, and who is much too absorbed in his own personal wants to have a thought to spare upon anything outside himself.
A glance at the inside of the cottage, as I entered, confirmed me in the conjecture which the appearance of the outside had already given rise to, that it was not used for human residence, and that this man was only here for a rendezvous. Prolonged moisture had peeled the plaster in flakes from the walls, and had covered the stones with blotches and rosettes of lichen. The whole place was rotten and scaling like a leper. The single large room was unfurnished save for a crazy table, three wooden boxes, which might be used as seats, and a great pile of decayed fishing-net in the corner. The splinters of a fourth box, with a hand-axe, which leaned against the wall, showed how the wood for the fire had been gathered. But it was to the table that my gaze was chiefly drawn, for there, beside the lamp and the book, lay an open basket, from which projected the knuckle-end of a ham, the corner of a loaf of bread, and the black neck of a bottle.