A man was blundering down the hillside toward them, an easel on his shoulder.
As he came closer his face seemed strangely familiar to the young man. Where had he seen it? Then he recollected in a flash. It was the face Albert had drawn in caricature on the stable-door—the face of Ally Sloper.
Silver found himself wondering whether the owner of the face was aware of his likeness, crude indeed though real, of his great protagonist.
The fellow was incredibly slovenly. His hair was reddish and bushy about the jaw, and but for his eyes you might have mistaken him for a commonplace tramp. Those eyes held you. They were sensitive, suffering, terrible with the terror of a baffled spirit seeking escape and finding none. In that coarse and bloated face they seemed pitifully out of place and crying continually to be released. Indeed, there was something volcanic about the man, as of lava on the boil and ready at any moment to pour forth in destructive torrents. And surely there had been eruptions in the past with fatal consequences.
Now he waddled toward them with an unsavoury grin.
"What luck?" he called, in a somewhat honied voice.
"We won," replied Boy briefly.
She slipped the halter over the head of the old mare, who, too lazy to remove herself, began to graze where she stood.
The artist stood above the girl, showing his broken and dirty teeth, his eyes devouring her.
Silver resented the familiarity of his gaze.