Of these, the “Dog and Duck” stood as unchanged as any tree or hillock; for on the window-sill of the tap the same figure lounged and smoked. The rider got a better view of the fellow as he stood broadly in the sunlight. He was built sturdily, with something of an air of the sea about him; and his coat was bedecked with trinketry of faded gold, like an old galley-foist. But his face, red as brick and patched with eyebrows like tags of wild clematis-down, was a cut-throat one by every sinister mark.
As before—the traveller past—he swung heavily out into the road to watch his going.
“I’ve an eye for you, my friend,” murmured the baronet. “What do you do in this happy valley, where winds and waters should be the only forces to strive with?”
He was pondering a little all the way to Stockbridge; and there Betty Pollack came upon him with a blush and a smile, like a posy of sweetbriar, and drew his honour a mug of ale. She knew him now by report, of course; and was curious, with the gossips of the neighbourhood, as to the history of his mysterious coming. Near all the years of her short life, “Delsrop,” unclaimed and deserted, had been lonely, enchanted ground for the builders of local tradition to lay their airy bricks on.
“Is your honour for Winchester?” she said. “The evenings draw in, and it’s well to be over the downs by sunset. There have been bad characters about of late.”
“Betty,” said he, “will you give me a curl to put over my heart for a charm?”
She laughed and then looked grave.
“I’m not that sort,” she said. “I keep my favours for my inferiors.”
“And what am I but one?”
“Well,” said she, “I think you are, to talk so.”