By the
good glow of the leaping fire, that figure standing erect before it,
elegantly shaped, in the graceful folds of a serape, looked singularly
romantic and picturesque, and reminded Joshua Rylands--whose ideas of
art were purely reminiscent of boyish reading--of some picture in a
novel. The heavy black columns of the pines, glancing out of the concave
shadow, also seemed a fitting background to what might have been a scene
in a play. So strongly was he impressed by it that but for his anxiety
to reach his home, still a mile distant, and the fact that he was
already late, he would have penetrated the wood and the seclusion of the
stranger with an offer of hospitality for the night. The man, however,
was evidently capable of taking care of himself, and the outline of a
tethered horse was faintly visible under another tree. It might be
a surveyor or engineer,--the only men of a better class who were
itinerant.
But another and even greater surprise greeted him as he toiled up the
rocky slope towards his farmhouse.
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