It had been his plan to cross the island and seek some means of escaping to the Jersey coast from the south-side villages, but the fog hid everything, and he seemed walking in a circle. He was weak from excitement and lack of food, and after stumbling blindly onward for a while, he turned to the left and kept on a parallel with the coast, the boom of the surf being his guide; but always he kept the sound far enough away to avoid the sentinels from the patrol. The fog had turned into a rain, cold and depressing, and so after walking an hour or two he was willing to risk something of danger for food and rest. He had passed several houses but had kept aloof through fear; now, however, he bent his steps to a tiny light burning ahead. It was a fisherman's cottage close to an inlet that jutted in from the bay, and as good fortune would have it the old man, detained by the storm, was just getting home. Even in the little harbour the swell was unusually strong, and the man was having much difficulty in beaching his boat, so that Richard's aid was most timely. "Who are you, my friend?" the fisherman asked, when everything was snug and taut. "A traveller who has lost his way." The old fellow squinted his eyes for a closer look. "A traveller? Well, 'tis enough; we never ask names, my old woman and I, for in such days as these a man's name is ofttimes his most secret possession. We know not the rights of this war, and so we take no sides, but pray that justice may conquer. Now, how can I pay you for your help?" "By giving me food and shelter." "That will I, for without you I should have lost my whole day's take and that had been a terrible mishap. Fry an extra fish, mother," he called into the cottage. "Ay, two of them, good mother. I pray you; for I am as a ravening wolf seeking what I may devour," Richard said, putting his head in at the door; and his voice was so bonny that the old woman filled the skillet with a lavish hand. And in that firelit hut he ate the first palatable meal he had had since Monmouth day. Then he set himself artfully to persuade the fisherman to take him down the Sound in his boat. "Nay, I never go now, the journey is too much for me; and besides I must go to-morrow to the camp to sell my fish. But the soldiers go and come between here and New York every day; if you will come with me to the camp, I will get you company." But Richard evaded the invitation. After a while the old woman said: "There is Dame Grant who lives just over the inlet, she goes down the Sound day after to-morrow to see her people,--she hath recently heard that her niece hath a new baby (a fine girl weighing ten pounds in its skin and to be named for the dame), mayhap you could find passage with her."