Finding the door open, I entered.

An old man sat in it, near a fire, over which he was preparing his breakfast.

He turned on hearing a noise, and perceiving me, shrieked loudly, and quitting the hut, ran across the fields with a speed of which his debilitated form hardly appeared capable.

His appearance, different from any I had ever before seen, and his flight somewhat surprised me.

But I was enchanted by the appearance of the hut; here the snow and rain could not penetrate; the ground was dry; and it presented to me then as exquisite and divine a retreat as Pandemonium appeared to the demons of hell after their sufferings in the lake of fire.