Pagina 534 de 896

For, in these times, as the mender of roads worked, solitary, in

the dust, not often troubling himself to reflect that dust he was

and to dust he must return, being for the most part too much

occupied in thinking how little he had for supper and how much

more he would eat if he had it--in these times, as he raised his

eyes from his lonely labour, and viewed the prospect, he would

see some rough figure approaching on foot, the like of which was

once a rarity in those parts, but was now a frequent presence. As

it advanced, the mender of roads would discern without surprise,

that it was a shaggy-haired man, of almost barbarian aspect,

tall, in wooden shoes that were clumsy even to the eyes of a

mender of roads, grim, rough, swart, steeped in the mud and dust

of many highways, dank with the marshy moisture of many low

grounds, sprinkled with the thorns and leaves and moss of many

byways through woods.