the steersman to me, "you'll have to wet your
feet, for we can't venture further in. Jump over, and you'll soon touch
land again."

I obeyed without a word, and ere I reached the shore the boat was
already on her way back to the schooner. As I stood gazing on the dark
expanse of sea before me, and then turned to the gloomy outline of the
land, I felt a sense of desolation no words can render. I had not the
very vaguest notion where I was. So far as I could see, there were no
traces of habitation near; and as I wandered inland, the same unbroken
succession of sand hummocks surrounded me. How strange is it that in
this old Europe of ours, so time-worn by civilization, so crossed and
recrossed by man's labors, how many spots there are which, in this wild
solitude, might well be supposed to form parts of Africa or distant
America! The day broke to find me still wandering along these dreary
sand-hills; but to my great delight two church towers about a league off
showed me that a village was near; and thither I now proceeded to bend
my steps.

After walking about a mile I reached a high road which evidently led to
the village; and now it became necessary to bethink me what account I
should give of myself, and how explain my appearance when questioned, as
I inevitably should be, by the authorities.

My drenched and shrunk-up clothes and my way-worn look might well have
warranted the story of a shipwreck, and for some minutes I had almost
resolved to give that version of my calamity; but I was so weary of the
vicissitudes a false representation involved, so actually tired out by
the labor of sustaining a part that was not my own, that I determined to
take no heed of what was to follow, and leave myself to the chances of
destiny, without a struggle against them.

Fortune, thought I, has never been over kind to me when I did my best to
woo her; let me see if a little indifference on my part may not render
her more graciously disposed. From some peasants on their way to market
I learned that the village was called Lys, and was on the high road to
Montreuil. At all events, then, I was in France, which was almost as
much my country as England, and with even so much did I rally my spirits
and encourage my hopes. The country-people, with their pack-mules,
stared at my strange appearance, and evidently wondered what manner of
man I might be, for I still wore my full-dress suit; and my lace ruffles
and sabot, however discolored, sho