g him with an eye
so keen, and a look so eager and attentive, that it was more like the
expression of an intrusive face in some powerful picture or strongly
marked dream, than the scrutiny even of a most interested and anxious
observer.

The sky had been lowering and dark for some time, and the commencement
of a violent storm of rain drove Ralph for shelter to a tree. He was
leaning against it with folded arms, still buried in thought, when,
happening to raise his eyes, he suddenly met those of a man who,
creeping round the trunk, peered into his face with a searching look.
There was something in the usurer's expression at the moment, which the
man appeared to remember well, for it decided him; and stepping close up
to Ralph, he pronounced his name.

Astonished for the moment, Ralph fell back a couple of paces and
surveyed him from head to foot. A spare, dark, withered man, of about
his own age, with a stooping body, and a very sinister face rendered
more ill-favoured by hollow and hungry cheeks, deeply sunburnt, and
thick black eyebrows, blacker in contrast with the perfect whiteness of
his hair; roughly clothed in shabby garments, of a strange and uncouth
make; and having about him an indefinable manner of depression and
degradation--this, for a moment, was all he saw. But he looked again,
and the face and person seemed gradually to grow less strange; to change
as he looked, to subside and soften into lineaments that were familiar,
until at last they resolved themselves, as if by some strange optical
illusion, into those of one whom he had known for many years, and
forgotten and lost sight of for nearly as many more.

The man saw that the recognition was mutual, and beckoning to Ralph to
take his former place under the tree, and not to stand in the falling
rain, of which, in his first surprise, he had been quite regardless,
addressed him in a hoarse, faint tone.

'You would hardly have known me from my voice, I suppose, Mr Nickleby?'
he said.

'No,' returned Ralph, bending a severe look upon him. 'Though there is
something in that, that I remember now.'

'There is little in me that you can call to mind as having been there
eight years ago, I dare say?' observed the other.

'Quite enough,' said Ralph, carelessly, and averting his face. 'More
than enough.'

'If I had remained in doubt about YOU, Mr Nickleby,' said the other,
'this reception, and YOUR manner, would have decided me very soon.'

'Did you expect