and that presently it
would altogether melt away and vanish out of my knowledge, I looked
about me. First I looked above the towering Gates to see whether the
Lights had yet begun to change. Then as they had not I looked down the
Great White Road, following it for miles and miles, until even to my
spirit sight it lost itself in the Nowhere.

Presently coming up this Road towards us I saw a man dressed in a green
coat, riding-breeches and boots and a peaked cap, who held in his hand
a hunting-whip. He was a fine-looking person of middle age, with a
pleasant, open countenance, bright blue eyes, and very red cheeks,
on which he wore light-coloured whiskers. In short a jovial-looking
individual, with whom things had evidently always gone well, one to whom
sorrow and disappointment and mental struggle were utter strangers. He,
at least, had never known what it is to "endure hardness" in all his
life.

Studying his nature as one can do on the Road, I perceived also that in
him there was no guile. He was a good-minded, God-fearing man according
to his simple lights, who had done many kindnesses and contributed
liberally towards the wants of the poor, though as he had been very
rich, it had cost him little thus to gratify the natural promptings of
his heart.

Moreover he was what Jorsen calls a "young soul," quite young indeed, by
which I mean that he had not often walked the Road in previous states of
life, as for instance that Eastern woman had done who accosted me before
the arrival of the Hare. So to speak his crude nature had scarcely
outgrown the primitive human condition in which necessity as well as
taste make it customary and pleasant to men to kill; that condition
through which almost every boy passes on his way to manhood, I suppose
by the working of some secret law of reminiscence.

It was this thought that first led me to connect the new-comer with the
Red-faced Man of the Hare's story. It may seem strange that I should
have been so dense, but the truth is that it never occurred to me, any
more than it had done to the Hare, that such a person would be at all
likely to tread the Road for many years to come. I had gathered that he
was comparatively young, and although I had argued otherwise with the
Hare, had concluded therefore that he would continue to live his
happy earth life until old age brought him to a natural end. Hence my
obtuseness.

The man was drifting towards me thoughtfully, evidently much bewild