Mean it was, and desolate it looked on the wild moorland, but, it was a mark of the hand of man, and I, who had dwelt so long with God's hand everywhere about me, was touched with a sense of human friendliness. Hearing no voice within, I crept up and looked into the little place. A bed of straw was in one corner, and facing it was a lump of freestone hollowed out for the bed of a fire. A broken pipe lay near this rude hearth, and the floor was of mountain turf worn bare and hard. Two sacks, a kettle, a saucepan, and some potato-parings were the only other things in the hut, and poor as it all was it touched me so that in looking upon it I think my eyes were wet, because it was a man's habitation. I remember that as I turned to go away the rain began to fall, and the pattering drops on the roof seemed to my eye and ear to make the place more human. In going back to my boat that day I came nearer to Cregneesh than was my wont in the daytime, and though the darkness was coming down from the mountains, I could yet see into the streets from the knoll I passed over. And there in the unpaved way, before a group of houses I saw a witless man in coat and breeches, but no vest or shirt, and with a rope about his waist, dancing and singing to a little noisy crowd gathered about him. After that I had come upon the hut my mind ran much on the thought of it, and in three days or thereabouts I went back to look at it again, and coming near to it from behind, saw sundry beehives of a rude fashioning, made of straw and sticks. Veg-veen was with me, for he was now my constant company, and in a moment he had bounced in at the doorway and out again at yet more speed, with three of his kind close at his tail. Before I could turn me about to go away a man followed the dogs out of the hut, and he was the same witless being that I had seen at his dancing in the streets of Cregnesh. His lip lagged low and his eyes were dull as a rabbit's; on his head was a crownless hat through which his hair was seen, and I saw that his breast, where his shirt would be, was blackened as with soot. I would have gone about my own employments, but he spoke, telling me not to fear him, for it was false that he was possessed, as hard-spoken people said, with the spirit of delusion. I answered nothing to this, but stood and listened with eyes turned aside, while the broken brain of the poor creature rambled on.