There's no doubt my sister always
liked the man in a way; but women like a man in such a lot of different
ways that none could have told exactly how, or why, she set store on him.
For that matter she couldn't herself. Indeed I axed her straight out and
she tried to explain and failed. It wasn't his outer man, for he had a
face like a rat, with a great, ragged, grey moustache, thicker on one side
than t'other, and eyebrows like anybody else's whiskers. And one eyelid
was down, though he could see all right with the eye under it. Round in
the back he was and growing bald on the top; but what hair he had was
long, and he never would cut it, because he said it kept his neck warm.

He had his history pat, of course, though how much truth there was to it
we shall never know in this world. He was an old soldier, and had been
shot in the right foot in India along with Lord Roberts in the Chitral
campaign. Then he'd left the service and messed up his pension--so he
said. I don't know how. Anyway he didn't get none. He showed a medal,
however, which had been won by him, or somebody else; but it hadn't got no
name on it. He was a great talker and his manners were far ahead of
anything Mary had met with. He'd think nothing of putting a chair for her,
or anything like that; and while he was storm-bound, he earned his keep
and more, for he was very handy over a lot of little things, and clever
with hosses and so on, and not only would he keep 'em amused of a night
with his songs and adventures; but he'd do the accounts, or anything with
figures, and he showed my sister how, in a good few ways she was spending
money to poor purpose. He turned out to be a very clean man and very well
behaved. He didn't make trouble, but was all the other way, and when the
snow thawed, he was as busy as a bee helping the men round about the farm.
He made his head save his heels, too, and was full of devices and
inventions.

So when I got over after the worst was past, to see how they'd come
through it, there was Bob Battle working with the others; and when I
looked him up and down and said; "Who be you then?" he explained, and told
me how Mary had took him in out of the storm and let him lie in the
linhay; and how Noah had given him a suit of old clothes, and how much he
was beholden to them all. And they all had a good word for the man, and
Mary fairly simpered, so I thought, when she talked about him. There was
no immediate mention of his going, and