They formed a clump of three columns close together, which might
well be the mere bifurcation, or rather trifurcation, of one tree,
the lower part being lost or sunken in the thick wood around.
Everything about them suggested something stranger and more southern
than anything even in that last peninsula of Britain which pushes
out farthest toward Spain and Africa and the southern stars.
Their leathery leafage had sprouted in advance of the faint mist
of yellow-green around them, and it was of another and less
natural green, tinged with blue, like the colors of a kingfisher.
But one might fancy it the scales of some three-headed dragon
towering over a herd of huddled and fleeing cattle.

"I am exceedingly sorry your girl is so unwell," said Vane shortly.
"But really--" and he strode down the steep road with plunging strides.

The boat was already secured to the little stone jetty,
and the boatman, a younger shadow of the woodcutter--
and, indeed, a nephew of that useful malcontent--saluted his
territorial lord with the sullen formality of the family.
The Squire acknowledged it casually and had soon forgotten all such
things in shaking hands with the visitor who had just come ashore.
The visitor was a long, loose man, very lean to be so young,
whose long, fine features seemed wholly fitted together of bone
and nerve, and seemed somehow to contrast with his hair,
that showed in vivid yellow patches upon his hollow temples
under the brim of his white holiday hat. He was carefully
dressed in exquisite taste, though he had come straight from
a considerable sea voyage; and he carried something in his hand
which in his long European travels, and even longer European visits,
he had almost forgotten to call a gripsack.