I bethought me now who the man was. He had been but a year or two in
the neighbourhood, though the property on which we now stood had been
his own for a good many years. Some said he had bought it; others knew
he had inherited it. All agreed he was a very peculiar person, with
ways so oddly unreasonable that it was evident he had, in his
wanderings over the face of the earth, gradually lost hold of what
sense he might at one time have possessed, and was in consequence a
good deal cracked. There seemed nothing, however, in his behaviour or
appearance to suggest such a conclusion: a man could hardly be counted
beside himself because he was on terms of friendship with his
horse. It took me but a moment to recall his name--Skymer--one odd
enough to assist the memory. I caught it ere he had done mingling
fresh caresses with those of his long-tailed friend. When I came to
know him better, I knew that he had thus given me opportunity--such as
he would to a horse--of thinking whether I should like to know him
better: Mr. Skymer's way was not to offer himself, but to give easy
opportunity to any who might wish to know him. I learned afterward
that he knew my name and suspected my person: being rather prejudiced
in my favour because of the kind of thing I wrote, he was now waiting
to see whether approximation would follow.

"Pardon my rude lingering," I said; "that lovely animal is enough to
make one desire nearer acquaintance with his owner. I don't think I
ever saw such a perfect creature!"

I remembered the next moment that I had heard said of Mr. Skymer that
he liked beasts better than men, but I soon found this was only one of
the foolish things constantly said of honest men by those who do not
understand them.