So one February evening found him struggling across the moorlands that fringe the coast of Norfolk between Hunstanton and Lynn.  Thickets of russet fern and gorse stretched from the dark firwoods to the grey strand and the grey waters of the Northern Sea.  The rooks croaked drearily to each other as they winged their way inland, and the gulls circled wailing over the heath before taking their flight to roost on some lonely sand-bank, and no other sound broke the monotonous plunge of the cold waves.