Chapter 2 - Page 2

personages. I forget what they looked like. I think there was a man
whose reddish beard did not become him and another whose face might have
been improved by the addition of a reddish beard; there was also an
extremely moody dark man and I vaguely recollect a person who lisped.

They did not talk much; indeed there was very little conversation. What
there was Callan supplied. He--spoke--very--slowly--and--very
--authoritatively, like a great actor whose aim is to hold the stage as
long as possible. The raising of his heavy eyelids at the opening door
conveyed the impression of a dark, mental weariness; and seemed somehow
to give additional length to his white nose. His short, brown beard was
getting very grey, I thought. With his lofty forehead and with his
superior, yet propitiatory smile, I was of course familiar. Indeed one
saw them on posters in the street. The notables did not want to talk.
They wanted to be spell-bound--and they were. Callan sat there in an
appropriate attitude--the one in which he was always photographed. One
hand supported his head, the other toyed with his watch-chain. His face
was uniformly solemn, but his eyes were disconcertingly furtive. He
cross-questioned me as to my walk from Canterbury; remarked that the
cathedral was a--magnificent--Gothic--Monument and set me right as to
the lie of the roads. He seemed pleased to find that I remembered very
little of what I ought to have noticed on the way. It gave him an
opportunity for the display of his local erudition.

"A--remarkable
woman--used--to--live--in--the--cottage--next--the--mill--at--Stelling,"
he said; "she was the original of Kate Wingfield."

"In your 'Boldero?'" the chorus chorussed.

Remembrance of the common at Stelling--of the glimmering white faces of
the shadowy cottages--was like a cold waft of mist to me. I forgot to
say "Indeed!"

"She was--a very--remarkable--woman--She----"

I found myself wondering which was real; the common with its misty
hedges and the blurred moon; or this room with its ranks of uniformly
bound books and its bust of the great man that threw a portentous shadow
upward from its pedestal behind the lamp.

Before I had entirely recovered myself, the notables were departing to
catch the last train. I was left alone with Callan.

He did not trouble to resume his attitude for me, and when he did speak,
spoke faster.

"Interesting man, Mr. Jinks?" he said; "you recognised him?"

"No," I said; "I don't think I ever met him."

Callan looked annoyed.

"I thought I'd got him pretty well. He's Hector Steele. In my
'Blanfield,'" he added.