And wasn't I sorry I spoke! You know how I hate walking--at least on solid, rural earth; for I can walk a ship's deck a whole foggy night through, if necessary, and think little of it.

There is some satisfaction too in playing the vagabond in the streets of a big town till the sky pales above the ridges of the roofs.

I have done that repeatedly for pleasure--of a sort.

But to tramp the slumbering country-side in the dark is for me a wearisome nightmare of exertion.
With perfect detachment Mrs.Fyne watched me go out after her husband.
That woman was flint.
* * * * * The fresh night had a smell of soil, of turned-up sods like a grave--an association particularly odious to a sailor by its idea of confinement and narrowness; yes, even when he has given up the hope of being buried at sea; about the last hope a sailor gives up consciously after he has been, as it does happen, decoyed by some chance into the toils of the land.

A strong grave-like sniff.