across the grass of a terraced garden, pitched
herself over a low wall head first into the horse-pond in the yard below.

"Our man was out with the waggoner and the plough in the field nearest
to the house, and as he was leading the team round to begin a fresh
furrow, he saw, through the gap of the gate, what for anybody else
would have been a mere flutter of something white. But he had
straight-glancing, quick, far-reaching eyes, that only seemed to flinch
and lose their amazing power before the immensity of the sea. He was
barefooted, and looking as outlandish as the heart of Swaffer could
desire. Leaving the horses on the turn, to the inexpressible disgust
of the waggoner he bounded off, going over the ploughed ground in long
leaps, and suddenly appeared before the mother, thrust the child into
her arms, and strode away.

"The pond was not very deep; but still, if he had not had such good
eyes, the child would have perished--miserably suffocated in the foot or
so of sticky mud at the bottom. Old Swaffer walked out slowly into the
field, waited till the plough came over to his side, had a good look
at him, and without saying a word went back to the house. But from that
time they laid out his meals on the kitchen table; and at first, Miss
Swaffer, all in black and with an inscrutable face, would come and stand
in the doorway of the living-room to see him make a big sign of the
cross before he fell to. I believe that from that day, too, Swaffer
began to pay him regular wages.

"I can't follow step by step his development. He cut his hair short, was
seen in the village and along the road going to and fro to his work like
any other man. Children ceased to shout after him. He became aware of
social differences, but remained for a long time surprised at the bare
poverty of the churches among so much wealth. He couldn't understand
either why they were kept shut up on week days. There was nothing to
steal in them. Was it to keep people from praying too often? The rectory
took much notice of him about that time, and I believe the young ladies
attempted to prepare the ground for his conversion. They could not,
however, break him of his habit of crossing himself, but he went so far
as to take off the string with a couple of brass medals the size of a
sixpence, a tiny metal cross, and a square sort of scapulary which he
wore round his neck. He hung them on the wall by the side of his bed,
and he was still to be heard every eve