Now the water narrowed again—gradually, then abruptly—until it was only a stream that he crossed with the help of a stepping stone that lay between two twists of clear water. On the other side he lay down on his belly to taste the water. It was fresh, or mostly so, and he scooped up handful after handful. When had he last drunk anything but whisky and laudanum?

Once he had taken his fill he looked up again—water dripping from his chin, his three-day beard—and saw a hill of russet and purple, a thing on its own rising out of the flat country, conical, steep-sided. He made for it; the old human instinct to be above. The track took him close to the lower slopes, then he set off through young bracken and past the bracken on to brown heather that crackled under his boots. Quick little birds broke from cover. High in the east, something much bigger made lazy, inward-leaning circuits of the cloudless sky. He climbed, listening to the rasp of his breathing. Here and there, standing in the heather, were stones as tall as he was, shaped, he thought, placed there with some intent, their faces blue with the blue of evening.

At the top he found the wind. At first it refreshed him, then it began to burrow into his head. He crossed over and found a place under the brow of the hill, a dent, a ledge, where he could sit and have some shelter. Below him was a view made up as much of water as of land. To the north was another hill, isolated like the one he was on, though much higher. The rest was like a shattered plate with shards of land connected by narrow isthmuses, land that struck him as being more frail than the water, as if it stood only by the water’s consent and would, at a time of the water’s choosing, be covered again.