The sight brought a cluck of satisfaction from him, for he was not made for loneliness; and he paused to drink in the glad prospect. Indeed, he had come to think that his acres would prove but barren sheep-runs, and his house but a magnified shepherd’s cottage on a swept table of pasturage, till this good view opened out to reassure him.
Down below, at the foot of the hill, lay a little lusty field with a noble girth of hawthorn about it, and through the green of this a shining burn flowed—a mere crooked rindle it looked, pencilled white on the grass. It was like the image of a lightning flash—earth’s engraved memory of a sublime moment—so still seemed its course from the traveller’s coign of regard; and, for some reason unaccountable—unless it typified in its innocence the cleansing spring of repentance—it drew him to dismount that he might stoop and wash his throat with a mouthful of its kindly rippling.
He rode down, tied his horse to a stake in the hedge, and, crossing a broken stile, strolled over the long grass that gave up a spicy smell of peppermint. As he neared a fat bush of wayfaring tree that stood against the margin of the brook, he became aware of a man, whom he had not at first noticed, fishing in the shadow of the green covert. The very creases in the back of this individual, who was to all appearance absorbed in his sport, excerned a suggestion of watchfulness, that somehow convinced the intruder that his every approaching step was being marked and listened for. Careless of the fact, however, he came alongside the stranger, who moved not so much as an eyelid, but continued to observe the slow voyage of his float with inexpressible serenity.
“Any sport, friend?” quoth our hero.
The stranger, without turning his head, answered, “None”—like a dog snapping at a fly. He was not a well-favoured person, it must be said, either as to his clothes or features, any of which seemed to have assimilated a common frowsiness. His long yellow jaws were clean-shaved—if so spruce an epithet could be applied to a hand-breadth of mouldy stubble—and dry tags of neutral-tinted hair fell over his cheeks and little hard eye-places. A greasy cocked hat, whereof one flap had been roughly seized down to give shade from the sun, was battened on his head, and the length of his gaunt body was expressed only by a rusty brown riding-coat that fell almost to his heels.
There was something else—some peculiarity that marked him apart from the ordinary; and in the first moments of their meeting the new-comer vainly cudgelled his brains to find out what this was. But, presently, when at length the stranger turned to read him full-face with a single covert glance, he saw in what the abnormality consisted. The man had no ears, but only little corrugated holes where these features should have been.
Mr. Tuke gave a whistle, then a laugh.
“I disturb you, I see,” said he.
“That be damned!” said the stranger icily. “You disturb the fish, sir.”
He had a great hooked nose, the corners of which were sensitive of his every word. One would have expected them to vibrate like laminæ of talc if he should ventilate his anger.