, "What a handsome fellow!" and with justice; for if
perfectly regular features, splendid red and brown complexion,
faultless white teeth, and the finest head of curling black hair I ever
saw, could make him handsome, handsome he was without doubt. And yet
the more you looked at him the less you liked him, and the more
inclined you felt to pick a quarrel with him. The thin lips, the
everlasting smile, the quick suspicious glance, so rapidly shot out
from under the overhanging eyebrows, and as quickly withdrawn, were
fearfully repulsive, as well as a trick he had of always clearing his
throat before he spoke, as if to gain time to frame a lie. But,
perhaps, the strangest thing about him was the shape of his head,
which, I believe, a child would have observed. We young fellows in
those times knew little enough about phrenology. I doubt, indeed, if I
had ever heard the word, and yet among the village lads that man went
by the name of "flat-headed George." The forehead was both low and
narrow, sloping a great way back, while the larger part of the skull
lay low down behind the ears. All this was made the more visible by the
short curling hair which covered his head.

He was the only son of a small farmer, in one of the distant outlying
hamlets of Drumston, called Woodlands. His mother had died when he was
very young, and he had had but little education, but had lived shut up
with his father in the lonely old farm-house. And strange stories were
in circulation among the villages about that house, not much to the
credit of either father or son, which stories John Thornton must in his
position as clergyman have heard somewhat of, so that one need hardly
wonder at his uneasiness when he saw him enter.

For Mary adored him; the rest of the village disliked and distrusted
him; but she, with a strange perversity, loved him as it seldom falls
to the lot of man to be loved--with her whole heart and soul.

"I have brought you some snipes, Mr. Thornton," said he, in his most
musical tones. "The white frost last night has sent them down off the
moor as thick as bees, and this warm rain will soon send them all back
again. I only went round through Fernworthy and Combe, and I have
killed five couple."

"Thank you, Mr. George, thank you," said John, "they are not so
plentiful as they were in old times, and I don't shoot so well either
as I used to do. My sight's going, and I can't walk far. It is nearly
time for me to go, I think."