He did not look at me at first, but came, with that clucking of the
tongue against the palate which we use in Ireland as a sound of pity and
concern, to the rescue of the dog. His hands, fine and long and slender,
tore the trap apart as though it had been paper.

"Poor beast!" he said, "she is very little the worse. The teeth of the
trap had grown blunt, although they were strong enough to hold her."

I thought him the very finest gentleman I had ever seen or ever hoped to
see, and that is to say a good deal, since it would not be easy to find
a finer gentleman than my grandfather. And I had the portrait of Uncle
Luke and my childish memory of him. And Theobald is as fine and gallant
a young gentleman as you would wish to see.

But this stranger was finer than any of them.

Suddenly he looked at me for the first time, and I saw his face change.
Some wave of emotion passed over it, troubling its gay serenity. His
lips trembled. And then he was himself again.

"Pardon me," he said. "For the moment I thought I had seen a ghost--as
though ghosts apparelled themselves like the rose! You are very like
some one I once knew who is now dead. I am so glad I have been able to
help your poor dog."

I stammered like the rustic Richard Dawson had taken me for. Who could
this finest of fine gentlemen be?