tier to the blue of the sky. There was the yellow road, fantastic in its
frolic down to the valley. And at one of its wayward curves was the
shop, the shop of Festus Clasby, a foreign growth upon the landscape,
its one long window crowded with sombre merchandise, its air that of
established, cob-web respectability.

Inside the shop was Festus Clasby himself, like some great masterpiece
in its ancient frame. He was the product of the two civilisations, a
charioteer who drove the two fiery steeds of Agricolo and Trade with a
hand of authority. He was a man of lands and of shops. His dark face,
framed in darker hair and beard, was massive and square. Behind the
luxurious growth of hair the rich blood glowed on the clear skin. His
chest had breadth, his limbs were great, showing girth at the hips and
power at the calves. His eyes were large and dark, smouldering in soft
velvety tones. The nose was long, the nostrils expressive of a certain
animalism, the mouth looked eloquent. His voice was low, of an agreeable
even quality, floating over the boxes and barrels of his shop like a
chant. His words never jarred, his views were vaguely comforting, based
on accepted conventions, expressed in round, soft, lulling platitudes.
His manner was serious, his movements deliberate, the great bulk of the
shoulders looming up in unconscious but dramatic poses in the curiously
uneven lighting of the shop. His hands gave the impression of slowness
and a moderate skill; they could make up a parcel on the counter without
leaving ugly laps; they could perform a minor surgical operation on a
beast in the fields without degenerating to butchery; and they would
always be doing something, even if it were only rolling up a ball of
twine. His clothes exuded a faint suggestion of cinnamon, nutmeg and
caraway seeds.

Festus Clasby would have looked the part in any notorious position in