"Sh," she whispered, "here he comes--no one knows who he is."

To this day Robert Weston's age is a mystery to me; I might venture to
guess that it is between thirty and fifty. Past thirty all men begin
to dry up or fatten, and he was certainly a lean person. His face was
hidden beneath a beard of bristling, bushy red, and he had a sharp hook
nose and small, bright eyes. From his appearance you could not tell
whether he was a good man or a bad one, wise or stupid, kind-hearted or
a brute. He seemed of a neutral tone. His clothes marked him as a man
of the city, for we do not wear shooting jackets, and breeches and
leather leggings in our valley. In the way he wore them there was
something that spoke the man of the world, for in such a costume we of
Black Log should feel dressed up and ill at ease; but his clothes
seemed a part of him. They looked perfectly comfortable and he was
unconscious of them. This is where the city men have an advantage over
us country-breds. I can carry off my old clothes without being
awkward. I could enter a fine drawing-room in the patched blouse I
wear a-hunting with more ease than in that solemn-looking frock-coat I
bought at the county town five years ago. In that garment I feel that
"I am." No one could ever convince me that I am a mere thought, a
dream, a shadow. Every pull in the shoulders, every hitch in the back,
every kink in the sleeves makes me a profound materialist. But I don't
suppose Weston would bother spreading the tails out when he sat down.
I doubt if he would know he had it on. He is so easy in his ways. I
saw that as he came swinging around the house, and I envied him for it.

"Well, I am in luck!" he cried cheerfully. "Here I came to see the
valley's soldier and I find him holding the valley's flower."