doors were readily visible. The sad wan light revealed the lonely
pedestrian to be a man of supple frame; his gait suggested that he had
somewhat passed the period of perfect and instinctive agility, though not
so far as to be otherwise than rapid of motion when occasion required. At
a rough guess, he might have been about forty years of age. He appeared
tall, but a recruiting sergeant, or other person accustomed to the
judging of men's heights by the eye, would have discerned that this was
chiefly owing to his gauntness, and that he was not more than five-feet-
eight or nine.

Notwithstanding the regularity of his tread, there was caution in it, as
in that of one who mentally feels his way; and despite the fact that it
was not a black coat nor a dark garment of any sort that he wore, there
was something about him which suggested that he naturally belonged to the
black-coated tribes of men. His clothes were of fustian, and his boots
hobnailed, yet in his progress he showed not the mud-accustomed bearing
of hobnailed and fustianed peasantry.

By the time that he had arrived abreast of the shepherd's premises the
rain came down, or rather came along, with yet more determined violence.
The outskirts of the little settlement partially broke the force of wind
and rain, and this induced him to stand still. The most salient of the
shepherd's domestic erections was an empty sty at the forward corner of
his hedgeless garden, for in these latitudes the principle of masking the
homelier features of your establishment by a conventional frontage was
unknown. The traveller's eye was attracted to this small building by the
pallid shine of the wet slates that covered it. He turned aside, and,
finding it empty, stood under the pent-roof for shelter.

While he stood, the boom of the serpent within the adjacent house, and