n high rising ground across the valley. I might reckon to reach it
by turning back and taking the lane in which we had been surprised:
but this meant fetching a long circuit. I was weakening with loss of
blood, and--it coming into my mind that the river below would be
hard--I resolved to steer a straight line and risk obstacles.

As it turned out, there were none, or none to throw me back. At the
stream-side, holding by an elder-bough, I tested the ice with my
weight, proved it firm, crossed without so much as cracking it, and
breasted a bare grassy slope, too little to be called a down, where a
few naked hawthorns chafed and creaked in the wind. Above it was an
embankment rounded like a bastion, up the left side of which I
crept--or, you might almost say, crawled--and, reaching the top,
found myself close under the front of a dwelling-house.

It was coated with whitewash, the glimmer of which showed me the
queer shape of the building even in the darkness. It consisted of
two stories, both round as pepper-pots. Above the first ran a narrow
circular thatch, serving as a mat (so to say) for the second and
smaller pepper-pot. I could not discern how this upper story was
roofed, but the roof had a hole in it, from which poured a stray ray
of light. Light shone too, but through a blind, from a small window
close under the eaves. The lower story showed none at all.

I rapped on the door. There came no response, though I waited and
listened for a full minute. I rapped again and shouted; and was
about to challenge for the third time, when the threshold showed a
chink of light. Muffled footsteps came down the passage, and with
much creaking the bolts were undrawn.

'Who knocks?' demanded a man's voice, somewhat shrill and querulous.
'Cannot a poor scholar rest in peace, and at this time o' night?'

'In the name of Charity!' I urged.

He flung the door open and stood with a hand-lamp held high,
surveying me: a little old man, thin as a rat, in skullcap, furred
gown, and list slippers. The lamp shone down on his silvered hair
and on a pair of spectacles he had pushed up to the edge of his cap;
and showed me a face mildly meditative from the brow down to the
chin, which by contrast was extremely resolute.

'More soldiers!' he observed testily. 'The plague take it that they
and the meteors must choose the same night to drop from heaven!
How many of you, this time?'

I answered that I was alone, and would have