midnight march
After a few minutes ' rest and wringing of salt water from their garments , they proceeded inland to search for shelter , and well was it for the shipwrecked party that the captain of the lost yacht was acquainted with the lie of the land , for it was a rugged shore , with intermingled fields and morasses , and wooded rocky heights , among which it would have been difficult , if not impossible , to thread one 's way in the dark without severe damage to the shins . But Jim Slagg led them to a cottage not far from the sea , where they received from the family resident there at the time a warm and hearty Scottish welcome . It is not uncommon , we suspect , for eccentric natures to undertake the most important matters at the most unsuitable times and in the most ridiculous manners . At all events Robin Wright , while stumbling among the rocks and rugged ground of that midnight march in Mull , dripping wet and with the elements at war around him , conceived the idea of declaring his unalterable , not to say unutterable , attachment to Letta Langley , who leant heavily on the arm of her preserver . But Robin was intensely sensitive . He shrank from the idea , -LRB- which he had only got the length of conceiving -RRB- , as if it had been a suggestion from beneath . It would be unfair , mean , contemptible , he thought , to take advantage of the darkness and the elemental noise to press his suit at such a time .