“Blight him!  Blight him!  Blight him!” he said as he landed.  “So you are awake at last.”

“Awake and hungry,” I said.

He loosed a bundle from his back and opened it, and showed us bread and bacon.

“Blight him!  Eat!” he said, and we needed no second bidding.

“You are from the cage?” he asked as he sat and watched us.

I nodded.

“All the birds that come my way I feed,” he said.  “For once I was caged myself.  Blight him!”

“Whom do you blight?” I asked.

“Whom?” he cried angrily, and turned a suspicious eye on me.  “The Hanover rat,—­George!...  And the blight works—­oh, it works, and the brain rots in his head and the maggots gnaw at his heart.  And they wonder why!... an effectual fervent curse!—­Oh, it works!  For years and years I’ve cursed him night and day and—­you see!  Keep him in the dark, they said.  Let no man speak to him for a twelvemonth and a day, they said.  And no man spoke, but I myself, and all day long and all night I cursed him out loud for the sound of my own voice, since no other might speak to me.  For the silence and the darkness pressed upon me like the churchyard mould, and I kept my wits only by cursing.  Blight him!  Blight him!  And now they say—­But they may say what they will so they leave me in peace, for I know—­and you know”—­and he bent forward confidentially—­“it’s the King that’s mad, and soon everyone will know it.  Blight him!  Blight him!  Oh—­an effectual fervent curse indeed!”

“We are grateful to you,” I said, “for food and shelter.  We have money, we will pay.”

“As you will.  Those who can, pay.  Those who can’t, don’t.  All caged birds, I help.  Blight him!  Blight him!”

“We would rest till night, then you can put us on our way to the coast.  This is an ill land to wander in in the dark.  Last night we came on one who had strayed and died.”

“Where away?” he asked quickly.

“In the marshes—­over yonder—­about a mile away, I should say.”

“Was he clothed?” he snapped.

“Yes, he was clothed.”

And he was off with his pole across the flats, in great bounds, while we sat wondering.  We could see his uncouth hops as he went to and fro at a distance, and in time he came back with a bundle of clothes tied to his back.

“Food one can always get for the herbs of the marshes,” he said, “and drink comes easy when you know where to get it.  But clothes cost money and the dead need them not.  Blight him!”

Le Marchant begged me to ask if he had any tobacco and a pipe, and I did so.  He went inside and came out with a clay pipe and some dried brown herb.

“It is not what you smoke, but such as it is it is there,” he said; and Le Marchant tried a whiff or two, but laid the pipe aside with a grunt.

“He speaks as do the others from the cage.  How come you to speak as we do?”

“I am from Sercq.  It is part of England.”