It was, perhaps, the utter loneliness of my immediate surroundings just then that made me wonder to see any living thing so near. At that point there was neither a sail on the sea, nor a human habitation on the land; there was not even a sheep cropping the herbage of the headlands. I think there were birds calling about the pinnacles of the cliffs--yet it seemed to me that the man broke a complete stillness when he spoke, as he quietly wished me a good morning. The sound of his voice startled me; also, it brought me out of a reverie and sharpened my wits, and as I replied to him, I took him in from head to foot. A thick-set middle-aged man, tidily dressed in a blue serge suit of nautical cut, the sort of thing that they sell, ready-made, in sea-ports and naval stations. His clothes went with his dark skin and grizzled hair and beard, and with the gold rings which he wore in his ears. And there was that about him which suggested that he was for that time an idler, lounging. "A fine morning," I remarked, not at all averse to entering into conversation, and already somewhat curious about him. "A fine morning it is, master, and good weather, and likely to keep so," he answered, glancing around at sea and sky. Then he looked significantly at my knickerbockers and at a small satchel which I carried over my shoulders. "The right sort o' weather," he added, "for gentlemen walking about the country--pleasuring." "You know these parts," I suggested. "No!" he said, with a decisive shake of his head. "I don't, master, and that's a fact. I'm from the south, I am--never been up this way before, and, queerly enough, for I've seen most of the world in my time, never sailed this here sea as lies before us. But I've a sort of connection with this bit of country--mother's side came from hereabouts. And me having nothing particular to do, I came down here to take a cast round, like, seeing places as I've heard of--heard of, you understand, but ain't never seen." "Then you're stopping in the neighbourhood?" I asked. He raised one of his brown, hairy hands, and jerked a thumb landwards. "Stopped last night in a little place, inland," he answered. "Name of Lesbury--a riverside spot. But that ain't what I want--what I want is a churchyard, or it might be two, or it might be three, where there's gravestones what bears a name. Only I don't know where that churchyard--or, again, there may be more than one--is, d'ye see? Except--somewhere between Alnmouth one way and Brandnell Bay, t'other." "I have a good map, if it's any use to you," I said. He took the map with a word of thanks, and after spreading it out, traced places with the end of his thick forefinger.