We did not boast of shutters in those regions, and even blinds were a luxury which were not wasted in the little hall.

Consequently, when my unsatisfactory wanderings about the silent house--for no one else was up--led me that dreadful stormy morning into the narrow passage called the back-hall, I easily saw through its glass-door what seemed to me one of the most pathetic sights my eyes had ever rested upon.
Just outside the verandah, which is the invariable addition to New Zealand houses, stood, bareheaded, a tall, gaunt figure, whose rain-sodden garments clung closely to its tottering limbs.

A more dismal morning could not well be imagined: the early dawn struggling to make itself apparent through a downpour of sleet and rain, the howling wind (which one could almost see as it drove the vapour wall before it), and the profound solitude and silence of all except the raging storm.
At first I thought I must be dreaming, so silent and hopeless stood that weird figure.

My next impulse, without staying to consider my dishevelled hair and loose wrapper, was to open the door and beckon the poor man within the shelter of the verandah.

When once I had got him there I did not exactly know what to do with my guest, for neither fire nor food could be procured quite so early.