shelter. Shouldering my
trap and hurrying forward, I descended the hill, followed the road to the
East River, and, finding no boat, walked along the shore hoping to hail a
fisherman or some belated oarsman, and reach the station opposite.

My search led me around a secluded cove edged with white sand and yellow
marsh grass, ending in a low, jutting point. Here I came upon a curious
sort of dwelling,--half house, half boat. It might have passed for an
abandoned barge, or wharf boat, too rotten to float and too worthless to
break up,--the relic and record of some by-gone tide of phenomenal height.
When I approached nearer it proved to be an old-fashioned canal-boat, sunk
to the water line in the grass, its deck covered by a low-hipped roof.
Midway its length was cut a small door, opening upon a short staging or
portico which supported one end of a narrow, rambling bridge leading to
the shore. This bridge was built of driftwood propped up on shad poles.
Over the door itself flapped a scrap of a tattered sail which served as an
awning. Some pots of belated flowers bloomed on the sills of the
ill-shaped windows, and a wind-beaten vine, rooted in a fish basket,
crowded into the door, as if to escape the coming winter. Nothing could
have been more dilapidated or more picturesque.

The only outward sign of life about the dwelling was a curl of blue
smoke. Without this signal of good cheer it had a menacing look, as it
lay in its bed of mud glaring at me from under its eaves of eyebrows,
shading eyes of windows a-glint in the fading light.

I crossed the small beach strewn with oyster shells, ascended the
tottering bridge, and knocked. The door was opened by a gray-bearded old
man in a rough jacket. He was bare-footed, his trousers rolled up above
his ankles, like a boy's.

"Can you help me across the river?" I asked.

"Yes, perhaps I can. Come into the Hulk," he replied, holding the door
against the gusts of wind.

The room was small and low, with doors leading into two others. In its
centre, before a square stove, stood a young child cooking the evening
meal. I saw no other inmates.

"You are wet," said the old man, laying his hand on my shoulder, feeling
me over carefully; "come nearer the stove."

The child brought a chair. As I dropped into it I caught his eye fixed
upon me intently.

"What are you?" he said abruptly, noting my glance,--"a peddler." He said
this standing over me,--his arms akimbo, his bare feet sp