and hung, sleeves and all, more like a cloak than a coat.
He rested one bony hand on a black stick; under the shadow
of his broad hat his black hair hung down in a tuft or two.
His face, which was swarthy, but rather handsome in itself,
wore something that may have been a slightly embarrassed smile,
but had too much the appearance of a sneer.

Whether this apparition was a tramp or a trespasser, or a friend of some
of the fishers or woodcutters, Barbara Vane was quite unable to guess.
He removed his hat, still with his unaltered and rather sinister smile,
and said civilly: "Excuse me. The Squire asked me to call."
Here he caught sight of Martin, the woodman, who was shifting along
the path, thinning the thin trees; and the stranger made a familiar
salute with one finger.

The girl did not know what to say. "Have you--have you come
about cutting the wood?" she asked at last.

"I would I were so honest a man," replied the stranger.
"Martin is, I fancy, a distant cousin of mine; we Cornish folk just
round here are nearly all related, you know; but I do not cut wood.
I do not cut anything, except, perhaps, capers. I am,
so to speak, a jongleur."

"A what?" asked Barbara.

"A minstrel, shall we say?" answered the newcomer, and looked up
at her more steadily. During a rather odd silence their eyes
rested on each other. What she saw has been already noted,
though by her, at any rate, not in the least understood.