So sudden and savage the outburst, so raucous the voice, so charged with angry chagrin—the whole so incongruous with soft dreams and evening light—that ’twas in a shiver of terror my sister and I turned to discover whose presence had disturbed us.
The intruder stood in the door—a stubby, grossly stout man, thin-legged, thick-necked, all body and beard: clad below in tight trousers, falling loose, however, over the boots; swathed above in an absurdly inadequate pea-jacket, short in the sleeves and buttoned tight over a monstrous paunch, which laboured (and that right sturdily) to burst the bonds of its confinement, but succeeded only in creating a vast confusion of wrinkles. His attitude was that of a man for the moment amazed beyond utterance: his head was thrown back, so that of his face nothing was to be seen but a short, ragged growth of iron-gray beard and a ridge of bushy eyebrow; his hands were plunged deep in his trousers pockets, which the fists distended; his legs, the left deformed (being bent inward at the knee), were spread wide. In the shadows beyond lurked a huge dog—a mighty, sullen beast, which came stepping up, with lowered head, to peer at us from between his master’s legs.
“I’ll be scuttled,” said the man, bringing his head forward with a jerk, “if the little cock wouldn’t cut into the trade o’ Wayfarer’s Tickle!”
Having thus in a measure mastered his amazement (and not waiting to be bidden), he emerged from the obscurity of the doorway, advanced, limping heavily, and sat himself in my father’s chair, from which, his bandy legs comfortably hanging from the table, where he had disposed his feet, he regarded me in a way so sinister—with a glance so fixed and ill-intentioned—that his great, hairy face, malformed and mottled, is clear to me to this day, to its last pimple and wrinkle, its bulbous, flaming nose and bloodshot eyes, as though ’twere yesterday I saw it. And there he sat, puffing angrily, blowing his nose like a whale, scowling, ejaculating, until (as I’ve no doubt) he conceived us to have been reduced to a condition of trepidation wherein he might most easily overmaster us.
“Scuttled!” he repeated, fetching his paunch a resounding thwack. “Bored!”
Thereupon he drew from the depths of his trousers pocket a disreputable clay pipe, filled it, got it alight, noisily puffed it, darting little glances at my sister and me the while, in the way of one outraged—now of reproach, now of righteous indignation, now betraying uttermost disappointment—for all the world as though he had been pained to surprise us in the thick of a conspiracy to wrong him, but, being of a meek and most forgiving disposition, would overlook the offense, though ’twas beyond his power, however willing the spirit, to hide the wound our guilt had dealt him. Whatever the object of this display, it gave me a great itching to retreat behind my sister’s skirts, for fear and shame. And, as it appeared, he was quick to conjecture my feeling: for at once he dropped the fantastic manner and proceeded to a quiet and appallingly lucid statement of his business.
“I’m Jagger o’ Wayfarer’s Tickle,” said he, “an’ I’m come t’ take over this trade.”
“’Tis not for sale,” my sister answered.
“I wants the trade o’ this harbour,” said he, ignoring her, “on my books. An’ I got t’ have it.”