le for two young men to lodge with comfort in
such a dwelling. But there stood in the northern part of the estate, in a
wilderness of links and blowing sand hills, and between a plantation and
the sea, a small pavilion or belvedere, of modern design, which was
exactly suited to our wants; and in this hermitage, speaking little,
reading much, and rarely associating except at meals, Northmour and I
spent four tempestuous winter months. I might have stayed longer; but one
March night there sprung up between us a dispute, which rendered my
departure necessary. Northmour spoke hotly, I remember, and I suppose I
must have made some tart rejoinder. He leaped from his chair and grappled
me; I had to fight, without exaggeration, for my life; and it was only
with a great effort that I mastered him, for he was near as strong in body
as myself, and seemed filled with the devil. The next morning, we met on
our usual terms; but I judged it more delicate to withdraw; nor did he
attempt to dissuade me.

It was nine years before I revisited the neighborhood. I traveled at that
time with a tilt-cart, a tent, and a cooking stove, tramping all day
beside the wagon, and at night, whenever it was possible, gypsying in a
cove of the hills, or by the side of a wood. I believe I visited in this
manner most of the wild and desolate regions both in England and Scotland;
and, as I had neither friends nor relations, I was troubled with no
correspondence, and had nothing in the nature of headquarters, unless it
was the office of my solicitors, from whom I drew my income twice a year.
It was a life in which I delighted; and I fully thought to have grown old
upon the march, and at last died in a ditch.

It was my whole business to find desolate corners, where I could camp
without the fear of interruption; and hence, being in another part of the
same shire, I bethought me suddenly of the Pavilion on the Links. No
thoroughfare passed within three miles of it. The nearest town, and that
was but a fisher village, was at a distance of six or seven. For ten miles
of length, and from a depth varying from three miles to half a mile, this
belt of barren country lay along the sea. The beach, which was the natural
approach, was full of quicksands. Indeed I may say there is hardly a
better place of concealment in the United Kingdom. I determined to pass a
week in the Sea-Wood of Graden Easter, and making a long stage, reached it
about sundown on a wild September