not, it was not for him to say. And there was
something else. A small appointment which would keep a man from want for
the term of his natural life, without absorbing all his time, had
become vacant in the village. Several of the young men in the place were
anxious to have it; then he, too, came forward as a candidate, and all
the others jeered at him and tried to laugh him out of it. He cared
nothing for that, and when the examination came off he proved the best
man and got the place. He had fought his fight and had overcome all his
enemies; if they did not like him any the better for his victory, and
did and said little things to injure him, he did not mind much, he could
afford to forgive them.

Having finished his story, he said good-bye, and went his way, blown, as
it were, along the road by the wind.

We were now very curious to see the other members of his family; they
would, we imagined, prove amusing, if nothing better. They proved a good
deal better. The house we sought, for a house it was, stood a little way
back from the street in a large garden. It had in former times been an
inn, or farm-house, possibly a manor-house, and was large, with many
small rooms, and short, narrow, crooked staircases, half-landings and
narrow passages, and a few large rooms, their low ceilings resting on
old oak beams, black as ebony. Outside, it was the most picturesque and
doubtless the oldest house in the village; many-gabled, with very tall
ancient chimneys, the roofs of red tiles mottled grey and yellow with
age and lichen. It was a surprise to find a woodman--for that was
what the man was--living in such a big place. The woodman himself, his
appearance and character, gave us a second and greater surprise. He was
a well-shaped man of medium height; although past middle life he looked
young, and had no white thread in his raven-black hair and beard. His
teeth were white and even, and his features as perfect as I have seen in
any man. His eyes were pure dark blue, contrasting rather strangely with
his pale olive skin and intense black hair. Only a woodman, but he might
have come of one of the oldest and best families in the country, if
there is any connection between good blood and fine features and a noble
expression. Oddly enough, his surname was an uncommon and aristocratic
one. His wife, on the other hand, although a very good woman as we
found, had a distinctly plebeian countenance. One day she informed us
that she came