absorbed his mind; and strangely, while receiving multitudinous vivid
impressions, he did not commune with one, was unaware of them. His thick
black hair waved and glistened over the fine aquiline of his face. His
throat was open to the breeze. His great breast and head were joined by
a massive column of throat that gave volume for the coursing of the blood
to fire the battery of thought, perchance in a tempest overflood it,
extinguish it. His fortieth year was written on his complexion and
presence: it was the fortieth of a giant growth that will bend at the
past eightieth as little as the rock-pine, should there come no uprooting
tempest. It said manhood, and breathed of settled strength of muscle,
nerve, and brain.

Of the people passing, many knew him not, but marked him; some knew him
by repute, one or two his person. To all of them he was a noticeable
figure; even those of sheeplike nature, having an inclination to start
upon the second impulse in the flanks of curious sheep when their first
had been arrested by the appearance of one not of their kind,
acknowledged the eminence of his bearing. There may have been a
passenger in the street who could tell the double tale of the stick he
swung in his hand, showing a gleam of metal, whereon were engraved names
of the lurid historic original owner, and of the donor and the recipient.
According to the political sentiments of the narrator would his tale be
coloured, and a simple walking-stick would be clothed in Tarquin guilt
for striking off heads of the upper ranks of Frenchmen till the blood of
them topped the handle, or else wear hues of wonder, seem very memorable;
fit at least for a museum. If the Christian aristocrat might shrink from
it in terror and loathing, the Paynim Republican of deep dye would be
ready to kiss it with veneration. But, assuming them to have a certain
bond of manliness, both agree in pronouncing the deed a right valiant and
worthy one, which caused this instrument to be presented to Alvan by a