“He did the work which was given him with an intelligence which surprised old Swaffer.  By-and-by it was discovered that he could help at the ploughing, could milk the cows, feed the bullocks in the cattle-yard, and was of some use with the sheep.  He began to pick up words, too, very fast; and suddenly, one fine morning in spring, he rescued from an untimely death a grand-child of old Swaffer.

“Swaffer’s younger daughter is married to Willcox, a solicitor and the Town Clerk of Colebrook.  Regularly twice a year they come to stay with the old man for a few days.  Their only child, a little girl not three years old at the time, ran out of the house alone in her little white pinafore, and, toddling across the grass of a terraced garden, pitched herself over a low wall head first into the horse-pond in the yard below.

“Our man was out with the waggoner and the plough in the field nearest to the house, and as he was leading the team round to begin a fresh furrow, he saw, through the gap of the gate, what for anybody else would have been a mere flutter of something white.  But he had straight-glancing, quick, far-reaching eyes, that only seemed to flinch and lose their amazing power before the immensity of the sea.  He was barefooted, and looking as outlandish as the heart of Swaffer could desire.  Leaving the horses on the turn, to the inexpressible disgust of the waggoner he bounded off, going over the ploughed ground in long leaps, and suddenly appeared before the mother, thrust the child into her arms, and strode away.

“The pond was not very deep; but still, if he had not had such good eyes, the child would have perished—­miserably suffocated in the foot or so of sticky mud at the bottom.  Old Swaffer walked out slowly into the field, waited till the plough came over to his side, had a good look at him, and without saying a word went back to the house.  But from that time they laid out his meals on the kitchen table; and at first, Miss Swaffer, all in black and with an inscrutable face, would come and stand in the doorway of the living-room to see him make a big sign of the cross before he fell to.  I believe that from that day, too, Swaffer began to pay him regular wages.

“I can’t follow step by step his development.  He cut his hair short, was seen in the village and along the road going to and fro to his work like any other man.  Children ceased to shout after him.  He became aware of social differences, but remained for a long time surprised at the bare poverty of the churches among so much wealth.  He couldn’t understand either why they were kept shut up on week days.  There was nothing to steal in them.  Was it to keep people from praying too often?  The rectory took much notice of him about that time, and I believe the young ladies attempted to prepare the ground for his conversion.  They could not, however, break him of his habit of crossing himself, but he went so far as to take off the string with