doffed his hat to her she thought she had never seen anything more
beautiful than the smooth forehead, white hair, and long beard of the
returned patriot. That was the first impression; but a closer scrutiny
detected the furtive, watery eye, the unwholesome, drooping mouth, the
vicious teeth, blackened and irregular. There was, too, something
sinister in the yellow stockings, luridly contrasting with the black
knickerbockers and rusty blue coat.

At first Carterette was inclined to run towards the prophet-like figure
--it was Ranulph's father; next she drew back with dislike--his smile was
leering malice under the guise of amiable mirth. But he was old, and he
looked feeble, so her mind instantly changed again, and she offered him a
seat on a bench beside the arched doorway with the superscription:

"Nor Poverty nor Riches, but Daily Bread
Under Mine Own Fig Tree."

After the custom of the country, Carterette at once offered him
refreshment, and brought him brandy--good old brandy was always to be got
at the house of Elie Mattingley! As he drank she noticed a peculiar,
uncanny twitching of the fingers and eyelids. The old man's eyes were
continually shifting from place to place. He asked Carterette many
questions. He had known the house years before--did the deep stream
still run beneath it? Was the round hole still in the floor of the back
room, from which water used to be drawn in old days? Carterette replied
that it was M. Detricand's bedroom now, and you could plainly hear the
stream running beneath the house. Did not the noise of the water worry
poor M. Detricand then? And so it still went straight on to the sea--
and, of course, much swifter after such a heavy rain as they had had the
day before.