e a curiosity, isn't
he? Now tell me, doctor--you've been all over the world--don't you think
that's a bit of a Hindoo we've got hold of here.'

"I was greatly surprised. His long black hair scattered over the straw
bolster contrasted with the olive pallor of his face. It occurred to
me he might be a Basque. It didn't necessarily follow that he should
understand Spanish; but I tried him with the few words I know, and also
with some French. The whispered sounds I caught by bending my ear to
his lips puzzled me utterly. That afternoon the young ladies from the
Rectory (one of them read Goethe with a dictionary, and the other had
struggled with Dante for years), coming to see Miss Swaffer, tried their
German and Italian on him from the doorway. They retreated, just the
least bit scared by the flood of passionate speech which, turning on his
pallet, he let out at them. They admitted that the sound was pleasant,
soft, musical--but, in conjunction with his looks perhaps, it was
startling--so excitable, so utterly unlike anything one had ever heard.
The village boys climbed up the bank to have a peep through the little
square aperture. Everybody was wondering what Mr. Swaffer would do with
him.

"He simply kept him.

"Swaffer would be called eccentric were he not so much respected. They
will tell you that Mr. Swaffer sits up as late as ten o'clock at night
to read books, and they will tell you also that he can write a cheque
for two hundred pounds without thinking twice about it. He himself would
tell you that the Swaffers had owned land between this and Darnford for
these three hundred years. He must be eighty-five to-day, but he does
not look a bit older than when I first came here. He is a great breeder
of sheep, and deals extensively in cattle. He attends market days for
miles around in every sort of weather, and drives sitting bowed low over
the reins, his lank grey hair curling over the collar of his warm coat,
and with a green plaid rug round his legs. The calmness of advanced age
gives a solemnity to his manner. He is clean-shaved; his lips are thin
and sensitive; something rigid and monarchal in the set of his features
lends a certain elevation to the character of his face. He has been
known to drive miles in the rain to see a new kind of rose in somebody's
garden, or a monstrous cabbage grown by a cottager. He loves to hear
tell of or to be shown something that he calls 'outlandish.' Perhaps it
was just that outla