Our provisions had run low, and there seemed little enough for two hungry men who had all day been striving with salt winds.

So, knowing that this was a neighbourhood studded with great manors, and remembering the hospitality I had so often found, I left Shalah by the fire with such food as remained, and set out with our lantern through the woods to look for a human habitation.
I found one quicker than I had hoped.

Almost at once I came on a track which led me into a carriage-road and out of the thickets to a big clearing.

The daylight had not yet wholly gone, and it guided me to two gate-posts, from which an avenue of chestnut trees led up to a great house.

There were lights glimmering in the windows, and when I reached the yard and saw the size of the barns and outbuildings, I wished I had happened on a place of less pretensions.