The hill brows would, on such days, be lined
with patient onlookers; all eyes would be up the narrow valley to its
head under Hirlebury, where, below the little wood, his grey hut
could be seen, deep-eaved, mysterious, blankly holding its secrets
behind empty windows. None ever ventured to explore at close
quarters; and if the tenant had appeared, a thousand to one they
would all have looked the other way. The Wiltshire peasant is a
gentleman from the heart outwards. So, too, carters, ploughmen,
reapers in the vales would sometimes see his gaunt figure monstrous
on the sky-line, cowled and with uplifted arms, adoring (it was
supposed) the sun, or leaning on his staff, motionless and rapt,
meditating death and mutability. He lost nothing by such change
apparitions; on the contrary, he gained the name of a wise man who
had powers of divination and healing. In the cottage whither he went
once a week for bread, a child had been sick of a burning fever. His
hands, averred the mother, had cured it. Groping and making passes
over its stomach, rubbing in oils, relief had come, then quiet sleep
and a cool forehead. After this an old man, crippled with rheumatics,
had hobbled up to the very edge of his dominion, and had waited
shaking there upon his staff until he could get speech with the white
stranger.
Pages:
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213