It was evident that he did not care to establish friendly relations with the resident of Glenarm. He was about forty, light, with a yellow beard and pale blue eyes. He was dressed roughly and wore a shabby soft hat.
“Well, I suppose I’ll have to assume responsibility for him and his acts,” I remarked, piqued by the fellow’s surliness.
We had reached the center of the village, and he left me abruptly, crossing the street to one of the shops. I continued on to the railway station, where I wrote and paid for my message. The station-master inspected me carefully as I searched my pockets for change.
“You want your telegrams delivered at the house?” he asked.
“Yes, please,” I answered, and he turned away to his desk of clicking instruments without looking at me again.
It seemed wise to establish relations with the post-office, so I made myself known to the girl who stood at the delivery window.
“You already have a box,” she advised me. “There’s a boy carries the mail to your house; Mr. Bates hires him.”
Bates had himself given me this information, but the girl seemed to find pleasure in imparting it with a certain severity. I then bought a cake of soap at the principal drug store and purchased a package of smoking-tobacco, which I did not need, at a grocery.
News of my arrival had evidently reached the villagers; I was conceited enough to imagine that my presence was probably of interest to them; but the station-master, the girl at the post-office and the clerks in the shops treated me with an unmistakable cold reserve. There was a certain evenness of the chill which they visited upon me, as though a particular degree of frigidity had been determined in advance.
I shrugged my shoulders and turned toward Glenarm. My grandfather had left me a cheerful legacy of distrust among my neighbors, the result, probably, of importing foreign labor to work on his house. The surly Morgan had intimated as much; but it did not greatly matter. I had not come to Glenarm to cultivate the rustics, but to fulfil certain obligations laid down in my grandfather’s will. I was, so to speak, on duty, and I much preferred that the villagers should let me alone. Comforting myself with these reflections I reached the wharf, where I saw Morgan sitting with his feet dangling over the water, smoking a pipe.