chanced to strike the
responsive chord, Snarley became your devoted slave on the spot; the
heavy, even brutal, expression that his face often wore passed off like
a cloud; you were in the Mount of Transfiguration, and it seemed that
Elijah or one of the prophets had come back to earth. If, as was more
likely, your manner repelled him, he would show signs of immediate
distress; the animality of his features would become more sinister and
forbidding; and if, undaunted by the first repulse, you continued to
press your attentions upon him, he would presently break out into an
ungovernable paroxysm of rage, accompanied by startling language and
even by threats of violence, which drove offenders headlong from his
presence. In these outbursts he was unrestrained by rank, age, or
sex--indeed, his antipathies to certain women were the most violent of
all. Curiously enough, it was the presence of humanity of the
uncongenial type which alone had power to effect his reversion to the
status of the brute. His normal condition was gentle and serene: he was
fond of children and certain animals, and he bore the agonies of his old
rheumatic limbs without a murmur of complaint.

It was not possible, of course, that such a man, however gifted with
intelligence, should "succeed in life." There were some people who held
that he was mad, and proposed that he should be put under restraint; and
doubtless they would have gained their end had not Snarley been able to
give proofs of his sanity in certain directions such as few men could
produce.

Once he had been haled before the magistrate to answer a serious charge
of using threats, was fined and compelled to give security for his good
behaviour; and it was on this occasion that he narrowly escaped
detention as a lunatic. Indeed, I cannot prove that he was sane; but
neither could I prove it, if challenged, in regard to myself--a
difficulty which the courteous reader, in his own case, will hardly deny
that he has to share with me. Mad or sane, it is certain that Snarley,
under a kinder Fate, might have been something more splendid than he
was. Mystic, star-gazer, dabbler in black or blackish arts, he seemed in
his lowly occupation of shepherd to represent some strange miscarriage
of Nature's designs; but Mrs. Abel, who understood the secrets of many
hearts, always maintained that Snarley, the breeder of the famous
Perryman rams, had found the calling to which he had been fore-ordained
from the