elf.

Yet whereas we were out-at-elbows, the carpenters were sleek,
respectable, monied, well-clad fellows. Also, there was something dour
and irritating about them, since, for one thing, they had failed to
respond to our greeting on our first appearance, and eyed us with
nothing but dislike and suspicion. Hence, hurt by their chilly
attitude, we had withdrawn from their immediate neighbourhood,
constructed a causeway of stepping stones to the eastern bank of the
rivulet, and taken up our abode beneath the chaotic grey mists which
enveloped the mountain side in that direction.

Also, over the carpenters there was a foreman--a man whose bony frame,
clad in a white shirt and a pair of white trousers, looked always as
though it were ready-attired for death. Moreover, he wore no cap to
conceal the yellow patch of baldness which covered most of his head,
and, in addition, his nose was squat and grey, his neck and face had
over them skin of a porous, pumice-like consistency, his eyes were
green and dim, and upon his features there was stamped a dead and
disagreeable expression. To be candid, however, behind the dark lips
lay a set of fine, close teeth, while the hairs of the grey beard (a
beard trimmed after the Tartar fashion) were thick and, seemingly, soft.

Never did this man put a hand actually to the work; always he kept
roaming about with the large, rigid-looking fingers of his hands tucked
into his belt, and his fixed and expressionless eyes scanning the
barraque, the men, and the work as his lips vented some such lines as:

Oh God our Father, bound hast Thou
A crown of thorns upon my brow!
Listen to my humble prayer!
Lighten the burden which I bear!

"What on earth can be in the man's mind?" once remarked the ex-soldier,
with a frowning glance at the singer.

As for our duties, my mates and I had nothing to do, and soon began to
find the time tedious. For his part, the man with the Cossack
physiognomy scaled the mountain side; whence he could be heard
whistling and snapping twigs with his heavy feet, while the ex-soldier
selected a space between two rocks for a shelter of ace-rose boughs,
and, stretching himself on his stomach, fell to smoking strong mountain
tobacco in his large meerschaum pipe as dimly, dreamily he contemplated
the play of the mountain torrent. Lastly, I myself selected a seat on a
rock which overhung the brook, dipped my feet in the coolness of the
water, and proceeded to mend my s