with ivy climbing up its walls and partly obscuring its Gothic windows.

There was a clock in the gray tower of the ancient church, and the hands
on the dial-plate had now almost reached the hour of noon. At this
busiest hour of the market a strange old gentleman was seen making his
way among the crowd, he was very tall and bulky, and wore a brown coat
and small-clothes, with black worsted stockings and buckled shoes. On
his head was a three cornered hat, beneath which a bushy gray wig thrust
itself out, all in disorder. The old gentleman elbowed the people
aside, and forced his way through the midst of them with a singular kind
of gait, rolling his body hither and thither, so that he needed twice as
much room as any other person there.

"Make way, sir!" he would cry out, in a loud, harsh voice, when somebody
happened to interrupt his progress. "Sir, you intrude your person into
the public thoroughfare!"

"What a queer old fellow this is!" muttered the people among themselves,
hardly knowing whether to laugh or to be angry.

But when they looked into the venerable stranger's face, not the most
thoughtless among them dared to offer him the least impertinence.
Though his features were scarred and distorted with the scrofula, and
though his eyes were dim and bleared, yet there was something of
authority and wisdom in his look, which impressed them all with awe. So
they stood aside to let him pass; and the old gentleman made his way
across the market-place, and paused near the corner of the ivy-mantled
church. Just as he reached it the clock struck twelve.

On the very spot of ground where the stranger now stood some aged people