ir of the seaside, it was damp and draughty within and half-ruinous
without. It was impossible for two young men to lodge with comfort in
such a dwelling. But there stood in the northern part of the estate, in
a wilderness of links and blowing sand-hills, and between a plantation
and the sea, a small Pavilion or Belvidere, of modern design, which was
exactly suited to our wants; and in this hermitage, speaking little,
reading much, and rarely associating except at meals, Northmour and I
spent four tempestuous winter months. I might have stayed longer; but
one March night there sprang up between us a dispute, which rendered my
departure necessary. Northmour spoke hotly, I remember, and I suppose I
must have made some tart rejoinder. He leaped from his chair and
grappled me; I had to fight, without exaggeration, for my life; and it
was only with a great effort that I mastered him, for he was near as
strong in body as myself, and seemed filled with the devil. The next
morning we met on our usual terms; but I judged it more delicate to
withdraw; nor did he attempt to dissuade me.

It was nine years before I revisited the neighbourhood. I travelled at
that time with a tilt-cart, a tent, and a cooking-stove, tramping all
day beside the waggon, and at night, whenever it was possible, gipsying
in a cove of the hills, or by the side of a wood. I believe I visited in
this manner most of the wild and desolate regions both in England and
Scotland; and, as I had neither friends nor relations, I was troubled
with no correspondence, and had nothing in the nature of headquarters,
unless it was the office of my solicitors, from whom I drew my income
twice a year. It was a life in which I delighted; and I fully thought to
have grown old upon the march, and at last died in a ditch.

It was my whole business to find desolate corners, where I could camp
without the fear of interruption; and hence, being in another part of
the same shire, I bethought me suddenly of the Pavilion on the Links. No
thoroughfare passed within three miles of it. The nearest town, and that
was but a fisher village, was at a distance of six or seven. For ten
miles of length, and from a depth varying from three miles to half a
mile, this belt of barren country lay along the sea. The beach, which
was the natural approach, was full of quicksands. Indeed, I may say
there is hardly a better place of concealment in the United Kingdom. I
determined to pass a week in the Se