“Couldn’t find my way,” said Bealby.
“Anyone with you?”
“No.”
The man reflected. “Tired?”
“Bit.”
“Come and sit down by the fire and rest yourself.
“I won’t ’urt you,” he added as Bealby hesitated.
So far in his limited experience Bealby had never seen a human countenance lit from behind by a flickering red flame. The effect he found remarkable rather than pleasing. It gave this stranger the most active and unstable countenance Bealby had ever seen. The nose seemed to be in active oscillation between pug and Roman, the eyes jumped out of black caves and then went back into them, the more permanent features appeared to be a vast triangle of neck and chin. The tramp would have impressed Bealby as altogether inhuman if it had not been for the smell of cooking he diffused. There were onions in it and turnips and pepper—mouth-watering constituents, testimonials to virtue. He was making a stew in an old can that he had slung on a cross stick over a brisk fire of twigs that he was constantly replenishing.
“I won’t ’urt you, darn you,” he repeated. “Come and sit down on these leaves here for a bit and tell me all abart it.”
Bealby did as he was desired. “I got lost,” he said, feeling too exhausted to tell a good story.