slender. His face was richly, though somewhat
heavily featured, olive tinted, save for the cheeks,
which had a dusky crimson bloom. His mouth was
as red and beguiling as a girl’s, and his eyes
were large, bold and black. All in all, he was
a strikingly handsome fellow; but the expression of
his face was sullen, and he somehow gave Eric the
impression of a sinuous, feline creature basking in
lazy grace, but ever ready for an unexpected spring.
The other occupant of the wagon was a man between
sixty-five and seventy, with iron-gray hair, a long,
full, gray beard, a harsh-featured face, and deep-set
hazel eyes under bushy, bristling brows. He
was evidently tall, with a spare, ungainly figure,
and stooping shoulders. His mouth was close-lipped
and relentless, and did not look as if it had ever
smiled. Indeed, the idea of smiling could not
be connected with this man—it was utterly
incongruous. Yet there was nothing repellent
about his face; and there was something in it that
compelled Eric’s attention.
He rather prided himself on being a student of physiognomy,
and he felt quite sure that this man was no ordinary
Lindsay farmer of the genial, garrulous type with
which he was familiar.
Long after the old wagon, with its oddly assorted
pair, had gone lumbering up the hill, Eric found himself
thinking of the stern, heavy browed man and the black-eyed,
red-lipped boy.
The Williamson place, where Eric boarded, was on the
crest of the succeeding hill. He liked it as
well as Larry West had prophesied that he would.
The Williamsons, as well as the rest of the Lindsay
people, took it for granted that he was a poor college
student working his way through as Larry West had been
doing. Eric did not disturb this belief, although
he said nothing to contribute to it.
The Williamsons were at tea in the kitchen when Eric
went in. Mrs. Williamson was the “saint
in spectacles and calico” which Larry West had
termed her. Eric liked her greatly. She
was a slight, gray-haired woman, with a thin, sweet,
high-bred face, deeply lined with the records of outlived
pain. She talked little as a rule; but, in the
pungent country phrase she never spoke but she said
something. The one thing that constantly puzzled
Eric was how such a woman ever came to marry Robert
Williamson.
She smiled in a motherly fashion at Eric, as he hung
his hat on the white-washed wall and took his place
at the table. Outside of the window behind him
was a birch grove which, in the westering sun, was
a tremulous splendour, with a sea of undergrowth wavered
into golden billows by every passing wind.
Old Robert Williamson sat opposite him, on a bench.
He was a small, lean old man, half lost in loose
clothes that seemed far too large for him. When
he spoke his voice was as thin and squeaky as he appeared
to be himself.
