CHAPTER XVI 



THE HERMIT OF SERIGXAN (CONTINUED) 



OH, if you could now observe at your ease, in the 

 quiet of your study, with nothing to distract 

 your mind from your subject, far from the profane 

 wayfarer who, seeing you so busily occupied at a spot 

 where he sees nothing, will stop, overwhelm you 

 with queries, take you for some water-diviner, or 

 — a graver suspicion this — regard you as some ques- 

 tionable character searching for buried treasure and 

 discovering by means of incantations where the old 

 pots full of coin lie hidden! Should you still wear 

 a Christian aspect in his eyes, he will approach 

 you, look to see what you are looking at, and smile 

 in a manner that leaves no doubt as to his poor 

 opinion of people who spend their time in watch- 

 ing Flies. You will be lucky indeed if the trouble- 

 some visitor, with his tongue in his cheek, walks 

 off at last without disturbing things and without 

 repeating in his innocence the disaster brought about 

 by my two conscripts' boots. 



Should your inexplicable doings not puzzle the 

 passer-by, they will be sure to puzzle the village 

 keeper, that uncompromising representative of the 

 law in the ploughed acres. He has long had his 

 eye on you. He has so often seen you wandering 



232 



