“Father, sir?  That fifteen hundred pounds was going to my father’s hand, from whosesoever hand it came, or the loss of it.  And now what is to become of the poor old man, that hussy Dame Fortune only knows—­if she knows her own mind an hour together, which I very much doubt.  I worked early and late for that money, sir; up to my knees in mud and water.  Let it be enough for your lofty demands on poor humanity, that I take my loss like a man, with a whistle and a laugh, instead of howling and cursing over it like a baboon.  Let’s talk of something else; and lend me five pounds, and a suit of clothes.  I shan’t run away with them, for as I’ve been thrown ashore here, here I shall stay.”

Frank almost laughed at the free and easy request, though he felt at once pained by the man’s irreligion, and abashed by his Stoicism;—­would he have behaved even as well in such a case?

“I have not five pounds in the world.”

“Good! we shall understand each other better.”

“But the suit of clothes you shall have at once.”

“Good again!  Let it be your oldest; for I must do a little rock-scrambling here, for purposes of my own.”

So off went Frank to fetch the clothes, puzzling over his new parishioner.  The man was not altogether well bred, either in voice or manner; but there was an ease, a confidence, a sense of power, which made Frank feel that he had fallen in with a very strong nature; and one which had seen many men, and many lands, and profited by what it had seen.

When he returned, he found the stranger busy at his ablutions, and gradually appearing as a somewhat dapper, handsome fellow, with a bright grey eye, a short nose, a firm, small mouth, a broad and upright forehead, across the left side of which ran a fearful scar.

“That’s a shrewd mark,” said he, as he caught Frank’s eye fixed on it, while he sat coolly arranging himself on the bedside.  “I got it in fair fight, though, by a Crow’s tomahawk in the Rocky Mountains.  And here’s another token (lifting up his black curls), which a Greek robber gave me in the Morea.  I’ve another under my head, for which I have to thank a Tartar, and one or two more little remembrances of flood and field up and down me.  Perhaps they may explain to you why I take life and death so coolly.  I’ve looked too often at the little razor-bridge which parts them, to care much for either.  Now, don’t let me trouble you any longer.  You have your flock to see to, I don’t doubt.  You’ll find me at church on Sunday.  I always do at Rome as Rome does.”

“Then you will stay away,” said Frank, with a sad smile.

“Ah?  No.  Church is respectable and aristocratic; and there one don’t get sent to a place unmentionable, ten times an hour, by some inspired tinker.  Beside, country people like the Doctor to go to church with their betters; and the very fellows who go to the Methodist meeting themselves would think it infra dig. in me to walk in there.  Now, good-bye—­though I haven’t introduced myself—­not knowing the name of my kind preserver.”