He was halfway down when he saw a point of light, fragile in a fold of dark just beyond the base of the hill. He stared at it, fixed his gaze like a compass needle, then went on more swiftly, more carelessly, sprawling several times full-length in the heather, getting up, finding the light again and keeping going. He stumbled through the ring of bracken, through the roots of things, through shallow water. He smelled smoke, and a minute later he came to a house, the light spilling from a window imperfectly shuttered, and at either end of the thatched roof a chimney, one of them sending its smoke across the face of the moon. And there was . . . yes! . . . singing! He went close, pressed himself against the wall. A voice, unaccompanied. Their own language of course. A wavering voice, husky, wonderfully foreign . . .

He felt his way to the door, groped for a latch, found one, raised it, and walked into the low confusing light of the interior.

There were six or seven of them, sitting in a semicircle by the fire. On stools, on chairs; two, side by side, on a chest. The song broke off. An old dog, blind, white-snouted, growled at him out of its belly. Someone called it back. They looked at him. They were watchful but not, it seemed, much startled. He made a bow to them, which ended unsteadily. For a man who had been out in the air for hours, he felt surprisingly drunk. A chair was fetched. The others shifted back a little to accommodate him. He sat. He did not know if he was in a private house or a tavern of some kind. Certain objects made their presence felt. A great black kettle, a spinning wheel, a storm lantern. In the fire the peat had furred itself in grey and the smell of the house was the smell of the fire.

He took the whisky bottle from his pocket. There was only a mouthful left. He offered the bottle to the man on his left. The man gravely took it, and after pausing a moment, touched the neck to his lips, drank nothing, and passed it back. A square of black bread was put into Lacroix’s hand. He dropped it, picked it up. The singing returned or it had never stopped.

He tried to mark time with the bread but only succeeded in dropping it again. The blind dog, he thought, will come for it eventually. It will swim out like an eel.