continued at intervals to mutter, and to croon snatches of old songs.

An instinctive feeling convinced Bertram that he was a prisoner, and
that it would be advisable for him to quit the hut clandestinely: this
purpose he prepared to execute as speedily as possible. Without delay
he caught up his portmanteau and advanced to the door. It cost him no
great trouble to find the bolts, and to draw them without noise. But,
on opening the door and shutting it behind him, he found himself in
fresh perplexity; for on all sides he was surrounded by precipitous
banks of earth, and the faint light of early dawn descended as into a
vault through a perforated ceiling. However he discovered in one corner
a rude ladder, by means of which he mounted aloft, and now found that
the roof of this vault consisted of overarching eglantine, thorn
bushes, furze, and a thick growth of weeds and tangled underwood. From
this he soon disengaged himself: turning round and finding that the hut
had totally disappeared from sight, he now perceived that the main body
of the building was concealed in a sort of cleft or small deserted
quarry, whilst its roof, irregularly covered over with mosses and wild
plants, was sufficiently harmonized with the surrounding brakes, and in
some places actually interlaced with them, effectually to prevent all
suspicion of human neighbourhood. At this moment a slight covering of
snow assisted the disguise: and in summer time a thicket of wild cherry
trees, woven into a sort of fortification by an undergrowth of nettles,
brambles, and thorns, sufficiently protected the spot from the scrutiny
of the curious.

Having wound his way through these perplexities, he found his labour
rewarded; for at a little distance before him lay the main ocean. He
stood upon the summit of a shingly declivity which was slippery from
the recent storm, and intersected by numerous channels; so that he was
obliged in his descent to catch hold of the bushes to save himself from
falling. The sea was still agitated; the sky was covered with scattered
clouds; and in the eastern quarter the sun was just in the act of
rising,--not however in majestic serenity, but blood-red and invested
with a pomp of clouds, which reflected from their iron-grey the dull
ruddy colors of the sun.

"When the sun rises red," said Bertram, "it foreshows stormy weather.
Have I then not had storms enough in this life?"--He looked down upon
the sea, and saw the waves as they