some signs of a dwelling-house--and I see nothing but a
little shelving beach, and a sheet of dark water beyond. Where are we?

The gardener-groom vanishes, and appears again on the water, looming
large in a boat. I am laid down in the bottom of the boat, with my
saddle-pillow; and we shove off, leaving the ponies to the desolate
freedom of the moor. They will pick up plenty to eat (the guide says);
and when night comes on they will find their own way to shelter in a
village hard by. The last I see of the hardy little creatures they are
taking a drink of water, side by side, and biting each other sportively
in higher spirits than ever!

Slowly we float over the dark water--not a river, as I had at first
supposed, but a lake--until we reach the shores of a little island; a
flat, lonely, barren patch of ground. I am carried along a rough pathway
made of great flat stones, until we reach the firmer earth, and discover
a human dwelling-place at last. It is a long, low house of one story
high; forming (as well as I can see) three sides of a square. The door
stands hospitably open. The hall within is bare and cold and dreary. The
men open an inner door, and we enter a long corridor, comfortably warmed
by a peat fire. On one wall I notice the closed oaken doors of rooms;
on the other, rows on rows of well-filled book-shelves meet my eye.
Advancing to the end of the first passage, we turn at right angles into
a second. Here a door is opened at last: I find myself in a spacious
room, completely and tastefully furnished, having two beds in it, and
a large fire burning in the grate. The change to this warm and cheerful
place of shelter from the chilly and misty solitude of the moor is
so luxuriously delightful that I am quite content, for the first
few minutes, to stretch myself on a bed, in lazy enjoyment of my new
position; without caring to inquire into whose house we have intruded;
without even wondering at the strange absence of master, mistress, or
member of the family to welcome our arrival under their hospitable roof.

After a while, the first sense of relief passes away. My dormant
curiosity revives. I begin to look about me.

The gardener-groom has disappeared. I discover my traveling companion
at the further end of the room, evidently occupied in questioning the
guide. A word from me brings him to my bedside. What discoveries has he
made? whose is the house in which we are sheltered; and how is it that
no member of t