And even here, on this platform of the lonely mountain station, Spinrobin detected the atmosphere of the scholar, almost of the recluse, shot through with the strange fires that dropped from the large, lambent, blue eyes.  All these things rushed over the thrilled little secretary with an effect, as already described, of a certain bewilderment, that left no single, dominant impression.  What remained with him, perhaps, most vividly, he says, was the quality of the big blue eyes, their luminosity, their far-seeing expression, their kindliness.  They were the eyes of the true visionary, but in such a personality they proclaimed the mystic who had retained his health of soul and body.  Mr. Skale was surely a visionary, but just as surely a wholesome man of action—­probably of terrific action.  Spinrobin felt irresistibly drawn to him.

“It is not unpleasant, I trust,” the other was saying in his deep tones, “to find some one to meet you, and,” he added with a genial laugh, “to counteract the first impression of this somewhat melancholy and inhospitable scenery.”  His arm swept out to indicate the dreary little station and the bleak and lowering landscape of treeless hills in the dusk.

The new secretary made some appropriate reply, his sense of loneliness already dissipated in part by the unexpected welcome.  And they fell to arrangements about the luggage.  “You won’t mind walking,” said Mr. Skale, with a finality that anticipated only agreement.  “It’s a short five miles.  The donkey-cart will take the portmanteau.”  Upon which they started off at a pace that made the little man wonder whether he could possibly keep it up.  “We shall get in before dark,” explained the other, striding along with ease, “and Mrs. Mawle, my housekeeper, will have tea ready and waiting for us.”  Spinrobin followed, panting, thinking vaguely of the other employers he had known—­philanthropists, bankers, ambitious members of Parliament, and all the rest—­commonplace individuals to a man; and then of the immense and towering figure striding just ahead, shedding about him this vibrating atmosphere of power and whirlwind, touched so oddly here and there with a vein of gentleness that was almost sweetness.  Never before had he known any human being who radiated such vigor, such big and beneficent fatherliness, yet for all the air of kindliness something, too, that touched in him the sense of awe.  Mr. Skale, he felt, was a very unusual man.

They went on in the gathering dusk, talking little but easily.  Spinrobin felt “taken care of.”  Usually he was shy with a new employer, but this man inspired much too large a sensation in him to include shyness, or any other form of petty self-consciousness.  He felt more like a son than a secretary.  He remembered the wording of the advertisement, the phrases of the singular correspondence—­and wondered.  “A remarkable personality,” he thought to himself as he stumbled through the dark after the object of his reflections; “simple—­yet