cliff, I met the
roar of the breakers. My horse was scared, and leaped aside; for a
northerly wind was piping, and driving hunks of foam across, as children
scatter snow-balls. But he only sank to his fetlocks in the dry sand,
piled with pop-weed: and I tried to make him face the waves; and then I
looked about me.

"Watchett town was not to be seen, on account of a little foreland, a
mile or more upon my course, and standing to the right of me. There was
room enough below the cliffs (which are nothing there to yours, John),
for horse and man to get along, although the tide was running high with
a northerly gale to back it. But close at hand and in the corner, drawn
above the yellow sands and long eye-brows of rackweed, as snug a little
house blinked on me as ever I saw, or wished to see.

[Illustration: 474.jpg Snug little house blinked on me]

"You know that I am not luxurious, neither in any way given to the
common lusts of the flesh, John. My father never allowed his hair to
grow a fourth part of an inch in length, and he was a thoroughly godly
man; and I try to follow in his footsteps, whenever I think about it.
Nevertheless, I do assure you that my view of that little house and the
way the lights were twinkling, so different from the cold and darkness
of the rolling sea, moved the ancient Adam in me, if he could be found
to move. I love not a house with too many windows: being out of house
and doors some three-quarters of my time, when I get inside a house I
like to feel the difference. Air and light are good for people who have
any lack of them; and if a man once talks about them, 'tis enough to
prove his need of them. But, as you well know, John Ridd, the horse who
has been at work all day, with the sunshine in his eyes, sleeps better
in dark stables, and needs no moon to help him.

"Seeing therefore that this same inn had four windows, and no more,
I thought to myself how snug it was, and how beautiful I could sleep
there. And so I made the old horse draw hand, which he was only too glad
to do, and we clomb above the spring-tide mark, and over a little piece
of turf, and struck the door of the hostelry. Some one came and peeped
at me through the lattice overhead, which was full of bulls' eyes; and
then the bolt was drawn back, and a woman met me very courteously. A
dark and foreign-looking woman, very hot of blood, I doubt, but not
altogether a bad one. And she waited for me to speak first, which an
Englishw