they remind him of friends and happier days. It is a small
privilege for an old man, and he does not claim it often."

I declared that the music had only pleased, and that I would
welcome its repetition. Where upon she left me with a little bow
and an invitation to join them that day at dinner, while I
departed into the town on my own errands. I returned before
midday, and was seated at an arbour in the garden, busy with
letters, when there hove in sight the gaunt figure of Oliphant.
He hovered around me, if such a figure can be said to hover, with
the obvious intention of addressing me. The fellow had caught my
fancy, and I was willing to see more of him. His face might have
been hacked out of grey granite, his clothes hung loosely on his
spare bones, and his stockined shanks would have done no
discredit to Don Quixote. There was no dignity in his air, only
a steady and enduring sadness. Here, thought I, is the one of
the establishment who most commonly meets the shock of the
world's buffets. I called him by name and asked him his desires.

It appeared that he took me for a Jacobite, for he began a
rigmarole about loyalty and hard fortune. I hastened to correct
him, and he took the correction with the same patient despair
with which he took all things. 'Twas but another of the blows of
Fate.

"At any rate," he said in a broad Scotch accent, "ye come of kin
that has helpit my maister afore this. I've many times heard
tell o' Herveys and Townshends in England, and a' folk said they
were on the richt side. Ye're maybe no a freend, but ye're a
freend's freend, or I wadna be speirin' at ye."