"There be worse," said the woman. "Mind ye, John, to keep an eye on the clock. Them eggs should be on not a mite longer than two and a half minutes. Yes, there be more lonely places than this. Out there on the marsh"--she jerked a thumb backwards over her shoulder--"there be places where you won't see a human soul week in and week out. Here we get plenty of company, what with the lookers and the traffic on the road. We've lived here nigh on forty years and we ain't got no complaint. Leastways its bad for the rheumatics sometimes, and my old man there he has a touch of ague." She bustled out with the remark that she couldn't trust that durned old fool to look at the clock, and continued the conversation through the open door. "Reckon you'll be making for Folkestone. 'Tis a tidy walk." "No. I'm staying at Rye. I've come out to have a walk over the marshes." She loomed out a bulky figure framed in the doorway. "Then you baint lookin' for work? You be a visitor? A gentleman?" "I'm what they call a naturalist. I want to have a look at the plants and birds and things round about. I thought of walking across towards Dungeness." She cocked her hands on her hips. "I know what a naturalist is," she said nodding wisely. "You pick slimy things out of the dicks and keep 'em in little bottles. We've had gentlemen out here before like that. Lor-a-mussy, John, them eggs will be as hard as bricks." In a panic she flung back into the kitchen, and presently she set his meal before him. "You baint thinkin' of trying to walk straight across, be you?" she asked. "You'll be in a turble tangle if you do. Like as not, you'll lose yourself. Looks clear enough, but, when you get out in it, you'll find dicks and sluices and whatnot, all ravelling you up like. Then as you get out near the Ness you'll find the walking not too good." Labar swallowed a mouthful of hard-boiled egg. "I can find a road, I suppose." She shook her head. "They baint what you might call proper roads. Rough tracks most of 'em." "Not good enough for a motor car, eh?" She considered doubtfully. "I've knowd cars use some of 'em. But they do tell me as they shake the innards all up." He led her to a discussion on the topography of the marshes in which the old man came and joined. By the time his breakfast was finished he had extracted much information that might be indirectly useful in his quest, but nothing bearing directly upon it. The only point that they were unanimous upon was that it was a foolhardy thing for a stranger to explore the marshes without a guide. It was odds that if he persisted he would have to spend a night in the "hand-cold" and mist-sodden atmosphere.