out of breath, and spoke
to old Lewis, hammering there at a heap of stones; and the old chap,
taking off his immense black wire goggles, got up on his shaky legs
to look where she pointed. Together they followed with their eyes the
figure of the man running over a field; they saw him fall down, pick
himself up, and run on again, staggering and waving his long arms above
his head, in the direction of the New Barns Farm. From that moment he
is plainly in the toils of his obscure and touching destiny. There is
no doubt after this of what happened to him. All is certain now: Mrs.
Smith's intense terror; Amy Foster's stolid conviction held against
the other's nervous attack, that the man 'meant no harm'; Smith's
exasperation (on his return from Darnford Market) at finding the dog
barking himself into a fit, the back-door locked, his wife in hysterics;
and all for an unfortunate dirty tramp, supposed to be even then lurking
in his stackyard. Was he? He would teach him to frighten women.

"Smith is notoriously hot-tempered, but the sight of some nondescript
and miry creature sitting cross-legged amongst a lot of loose straw, and
swinging itself to and fro like a bear in a cage, made him pause. Then
this tramp stood up silently before him, one mass of mud and filth from
head to foot. Smith, alone amongst his stacks with this apparition, in
the stormy twilight ringing with the infuriated barking of the dog, felt
the dread of an inexplicable strangeness. But when that being, parting
with his black hands the long matted locks that hung before his face, as
you part the two halves of a curtain, looked out at him with glistening,
wild, black-and-white eyes, the weirdness of this silent encounter
fairly staggered him. He had admitted since (for the story has been a
legitimate subject of conversation about here for years) that he made
more than one step backwards. Then a sudden burst of rapid, senseless
speech persuaded him at once that he had to do with an escaped lunatic.
In fact, that impression never wore off completely. Smith has not in his
heart given up his secret conviction of the man's essential insanity to
this very day.

"As the creature approached him, jabbering in a most discomposing
manner, Smith (unaware that he was being addressed as 'gracious lord,'
and adjured in God's name to afford food and shelter) kept on speaking
firmly but gently to it, and retreating all the time into the other
yard. At last, watching his chan