of the bridge, and heard the occasional bark of a watch-dog. Try as I
would, I could not move an inch without causing a number of sticks to
crackle loudly--it was almost as bad as crawling under the heap of
sticks the morning before. Fortunately the wind must have drowned any
noise made, or carried the sound away, for, though the dog continued
to bark intermittently, it cannot have been aware of my presence.

Skirting the factory, I went across country, avoiding roads and houses
like poison. The land was very low and flat and the dykes very
numerous, sometimes whole fields being practically inundated. The only
things that tended to relieve the monotony were the solitary gaunt
willow trees, most of them mere shells of their former selves, which
stood out from the misty darkness, black and threatening, like grim
sentinels.

Everywhere was water, water, water. Every few seconds I was up to my
waist in it. Often I tried to jump a narrow dyke and misjudged the
distance, or got a bad "take off," owing to the softness of the
ground; this usually resulted in my falling with a splash into the
middle. I think the most aggravating thing of all was to make a really
good jump and land on the other side, just beyond the water-line, on
all fours, only to find that I had not enough impetus to remain there,
as the ground was sloping. Sometimes I was able to save myself by
jabbing my stick into the ground, though, more often than not, this
was impracticable, and my hands could find nothing firmer to catch
hold of than a few tufts of grass, which almost invariably gave way,
causing me to do a graceful but involuntary backward dive into the
dyke. As constant exercise of this sort is very tiring and the weight
of water contained in one's clothes greatly hinders freedom of action,
my progress was necessarily rather slower than usual. A little after
midnight the ground became harder, and I soon found myself once more
on a moor, wandering along a narrow sandy track, among deep heather
and broom bushes. Just as I was getting a little drier and it seemed
as if the watery nightmare was over, I ran into a series of peat bogs,
many of them more dangerous than those I had encountered my first
night out.

I found the best way to cross a narrow strip of marsh was to make a
rush to the firm ground, as these tactics did not allow enough time
for my feet to sink in very far. Once the little track I was
cautiously following ended abruptly at the edge o