BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 67 



existence pleasant and sweet. But it was a very 

 rough-cast face, with shapeless nose and thick 

 lips. He was short and broad-shouldered, always 

 in the warm weather in his shirt-sleeves, a shirt 

 of some very coarse material and of an earthen 

 colour, his brown thick arms bare to the elbows. 

 Waistcoat and trousers looked as if he had worn 

 them for half his life, and had a marbled or 

 mottled appearance as if they had taken the 

 various tints of all the objects and materials he 

 had handled or rubbed against in his life's work 

 — wood, mossy trees, grass, clay, bricks, stone, 

 rusty iron, and dozens more. He wore the field- 

 labourer's thick boots; his ancient rusty felt hat 

 had long lost its original shape; and finally, to 

 complete the portrait, a short black day pipe was 

 never out of his lips — never, at all events, when 

 I saw him, which was often; for every day as I 

 strolled past his domain he would be on the out- 

 side of his hedge, or just coming out of his gate, 

 invariably with something in his hand — a spade, 

 a fork, or stick of wood, or an old empty fruit- 

 basket. Although thus having the appearance of 

 being very much occupied, he would always stop 

 for a few minutes' talk with me; and by-and-by 



