Steadman looked puzzled.
'Well, you see, sir, your description might apply to a good many; but if it's the man I think you mean he lives in one of the cottages behind the church. Old Barlow, they call him.'
'There can't be two such men—he must be at least a century old. If any one told me he were a hundred and twenty I shouldn't be inclined to doubt the fact. I never saw such a shrivelled, wrinkled visage, bloodless, too, as if the poor old wretch never felt your fresh mountain air upon his hollow cheeks. A dreadful face. It will haunt me for a month.'
'It must be old Barlow,' replied Steadman. 'Good day, sir.'
He walked on with his swinging step, and at such a pace that he was up the side of the Fell and close upon old Barlow's heels when Hammond turned to look after him five minutes later.
'There's a man who shows few traces of age, at any rate,' thought Hammond. 'Yet her ladyship told me that he is over seventy.'