To the hill, then, I turned.  I reached it.  It remained now only to find a hollow where I could lie down, and feel at least hidden, if not secure.  But all the surface of the waste looked level.  It showed no variation but of tint:  green, where rush and moss overgrew the marshes; black, where the dry soil bore only heath.  Dark as it was getting, I could still see these changes, though but as mere alternations of light and shade; for colour had faded with the daylight.

My eye still roved over the sullen swell and along the moor-edge, vanishing amidst the wildest scenery, when at one dim point, far in among the marshes and the ridges, a light sprang up.  “That is an ignis fatuus,” was my first thought; and I expected it would soon vanish.  It burnt on, however, quite steadily, neither receding nor advancing.  “Is it, then, a bonfire just kindled?” I questioned.  I watched to see whether it would spread:  but no; as it did not diminish, so it did not enlarge.  “It may be a candle in a house,” I then conjectured; “but if so, I can never reach it.  It is much too far away:  and were it within a yard of me, what would it avail?  I should but knock at the door to have it shut in my face.”

And I sank down where I stood, and hid my face against the ground.  I lay still a while:  the night-wind swept over the hill and over me, and died moaning in the distance; the rain fell fast, wetting me afresh to the skin.  Could I but have stiffened to the still frost —­ the friendly numbness of death —­ it might have pelted on; I should not have felt it; but my yet living flesh shuddered at its chilling influence.  I rose ere long.

The light was yet there, shining dim but constant through the rain.  I tried to walk again:  I dragged my exhausted limbs slowly towards it.  It led me aslant over the hill, through a wide bog, which would have been impassable in winter, and was splashy and shaking even now, in the height of summer.  Here I fell twice; but as often I rose and rallied my faculties.  This light was my forlorn hope:  I must gain it.

Having crossed the marsh, I saw a trace of white over the moor.  I approached it; it was a road or a track:  it led straight up to the light, which now beamed from a sort of knoll, amidst a clump of trees —­ firs, apparently, from what I could distinguish of the character of their forms and foliage through the gloom.  My star vanished as I drew near:  some obstacle had intervened between me and it.  I put out my hand to feel the dark mass before me:  I discriminated the rough stones of a low wall —­ above it, something like palisades, and within, a high and prickly hedge.  I groped on.  Again a whitish object gleamed before me:  it was a gate —­ a wicket; it moved on its hinges as I touched it.  On each side stood a sable bush-holly or yew.