An angel supernal?"
Was it were-wolf spectral, or bear aboriginal? It lived and moved, and, as I cautiously neared the spot, I seemed to recognize a human being in the singular form,—stooping, squatting, and groping before me.
The man, for such it proved, was performing most wondrous gymnastics upon the ground,—smelling here, smelling there, too agile to be tipsy, too silent to be mad. I had no desire to be alone in a lonely road at nightfall with a maniac, and I was not sorry when my nearer approach resolved these strange phenomena into a well-dressed pedestrian on all-fours in the middle of a dusty highway.
He rose as I approached, and I smiled to see that the spectacles astride his handsome nose were minus one lens. He seemed half blind and wholly bewildered. I looked at once for the lost glass, and there it lay shining at me from the very spot where he had been so industriously peering. He laughed grimly as I handed it to him, fitted his treasure into its wonted rim, took out his watch, and with a low chuckle said,—
"Twenty-five minutes is a long time to search for a bit of such small circumference. Thank you. Do you go to the Deacon's?"
"Yes."
"So do I."
We walked on together in silence, till we reached our journey's end,—I too tired, he too reserved, too preoccupied, or too shy, to speak again; but when, at last, we were seated with our cigars on the Deacon's door-step, he turned suddenly to me and asked,—
[pg 288]