s adding little
to my information. I had encountered a brick-field, but soon after
that there was increasing proof that the canal was as yet little used
for traffic. In grew narrower, and there were many signs of recent
labour for its improvement. In one place a dammed-off deviation was
being excavated, evidently to abridge an impossible bend. The path
had become atrocious, and my boots were heavy with clay. Bearing in
mind the abruptly-ending blue line on the map, I considered it
useless to go farther, and retraced my steps, trying to concoct a
story which would satisfy an irritable Esens inn-keeper that it was a
respectable wayfarer, and not a tramp or a lunatic, who knocked him
up at half-past one or thereabouts.

But a much more practical resource occurred to me as I approached the
timber-yard; for lodging, free and accessible, lay there ready to
hand. I boarded one of the empty barges in the backwater, and
surveyed my quarters for the night. It was of a similar pattern to
all the others I had seen; a lighter, strictly, in the sense that it
had no means of self-propulsion, and no separate quarters for a crew,
the whole interior of the hull being free for cargo. At both bow and
stern there were ten feet or so of deck, garnished with bitts and
bollards. The rest was an open well, flanked by waterways of
substantial breadth; the whole of stout construction and, for a
humble lighter, of well-proportioned and even graceful design, with a
marked forward sheer, and, as I had observed in the specimen on the
stocks, easy lines at the stern. In short, it was apparent, even to
an ignorant landsman like myself, that she was designed not merely
for canal work but for rough water; and well she might be, for,
though the few miles of sea she had to cross in order to reach the
islands were both shallow and sheltered, I knew from experience what
a vicious surf they could be whipped into by a sudden gale. It must
not be supposed that I dwelt on this matter. On limited lines I was
making progress, but the wings of imagination still drooped
nervelessly at my sides. Otherwise I perhaps should have examined
this lighter more particularly, instead of regarding it mainly as a
convenient hiding-place. Under the stern-deck was stored a massive
roll of tarpaulin, a corner of which made an excellent blanket, and
my bundle a good pillow. It was a descent from the luxury of last
night; but a spy, I reflected philosophically, cannot expect a
fea