ring in my pocket, having just seen the new moon, I became aware of a great man coming leisurely down the valley.  He had a broad-brimmed hat, and a leather jerkin, and heavy jack-boots to his middle thigh, and what was worst of all for me, on his shoulder he bore a long carbine.  Having nothing to meet him withal but my staff, and desiring to avoid disturbance, I retired promptly into the chasm, keeping the tree betwixt us that he might not descry me, and watching from behind the jut of a rock, where now I had scraped myself a neat little hole for the purpose.

Presently the great man reappeared, being now within fifty yards of me, and the light still good enough, as he drew nearer for me to descry his features:  and though I am not a judge of men’s faces, there was something in his which turned me cold, as though with a kind of horror.  Not that it was an ugly face; nay, rather it seemed a handsome one, so far as mere form and line might go, full of strength, and vigour, and will, and steadfast resolution.  From the short black hair above the broad forehead, to the long black beard descending below the curt, bold chin, there was not any curve or glimpse of weakness or of afterthought.  Nothing playful, nothing pleasant, nothing with a track of smiles; nothing which a friend could like, and laugh at him for having.  And yet he might have been a good man (for I have known very good men so fortified by their own strange ideas of God):  I say that he might have seemed a good man, but for the cold and cruel hankering of his steel-blue eyes.

Now let no one suppose for a minute that I saw all this in a moment; for I am very slow, and take a long time to digest things; only I like to set down, and have done with it, all the results of my knowledge, though they be not manifold.  But what I said to myself, just then, was no more than this:  “What a fellow to have Lorna!” Having my sense of right so outraged (although, of course, I would never allow her to go so far as that), I almost longed that he might thrust his head in to look after me.  For there I was, with my ash staff clubbed, ready to have at him, and not ill inclined to do so; if only he would come where strength, not firearms, must decide it.  However, he suspected nothing of my dangerous neighbourhood, but walked his round like a sentinel, and turned at the brink of the water.

Then as he marched back again, along the margin of the stream, he espied my little hoard, covered up with dog-leaves.  He saw that the leaves were upside down, and this of course drew his attention.  I saw him stoop, and lay bare the fish, and the eggs set a little way from them and in my simple heart, I thought that now he knew all about me.  But to my surprise, he seemed well-pleased; and his harsh short laughter came to me without echo,—­

“Ha, ha!  Charlie boy!  Fisherman Charlie, have I caught thee setting bait for Lorna?  Now, I understand thy fishings, and the robbing of Counsellor’s hen roost.  May I never have good roasting, if I have it not to-night and roast thee, Charlie, afterwards!”