Boy led the mare up the hillside, her eyes on the flowing green of the
hill. The young man followed in her wake, lazy almost as the old mare,
who trailed reluctantly behind with clicking shoes. The dreams seemed to
have possessed him, too. He did not speak; his eyes were downward; but
he was aware all the time of that slight, slow-moving figure walking
just in front of him.

Then something seemed to disturb the stillness and ruffle his brooding
mind. It was a vague disease as of a coming sickness, and little more.
He emerged from the land of quiet and looked about him, like a stag
disturbed by a stalker while grazing.

A man was blundering down the hillside toward them, an easel on his
shoulder.

As he came closer his face seemed strangely familiar to the young man.
Where had he seen it? Then he recollected in a flash. It was the face
Albert had drawn in caricature on the stable-door--the face of Ally
Sloper.

Silver found himself wondering whether the owner of the face was aware
of his likeness, crude indeed though real, of his great protagonist.

The fellow was incredibly slovenly. His hair was reddish and bushy about
the jaw, and but for his eyes you might have mistaken him for a
commonplace tramp. Those eyes held you. They were sensitive, suffering,
terrible with the terror of a baffled spirit seeking escape and finding
none. In that coarse and bloated face they seemed pitifully out of place
and crying continually to be released. Indeed, there was something
volcanic about the man, as of lava on the boil and ready at any moment