I-XXIII

When he woke the room was bright with
narrow strips of sun, already too high
to shine broadly through the doors and
windows. His clothes, dry and comparatively
clean, reposed on a chair at his side, and, washing
in the basin which he found outside the door, he hastily
dressed. He looked, tentatively, for the priest,
but found only his aged helper in the roughly-cleared
space at the back of the house.

Bartamon was a small man, with a skull-like
head, to the hollows of which, the bony projections,
dark skin clung dryly; his eyes were mere dimming
glints of watery consciousness; and from the sleeves
of a faded blue shirt, the folds of formless, canvas
trousers, knotted, blackish hands, grotesque feet, appeared
to hang jerking on wires.

"Where's the Father?" Gordon inquired.

The other rested from the laborious sawing of a
log, blinking and tremulous in the hard brilliancy of
midday. "Beyond," he answered vaguely, waving
up the valley; "Sim Caley's wife sent for him from
Hollidew's farm. Sim or his wife think they're

[[110]]

p109 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p110w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p111

v?