Others, who had the appearance of men who lived by
regular and laborious handicraft, preferred the insulated bliss of
an unshared potation, and became more taciturn under its influence.
Nearly all, in short, evinced a predilection for the Good Creature
in some of its various shapes, for this is a vice to which, as
Fast-day sermons of a hundred years ago will testify, we have a long
hereditary claim. The only guests to whom Robin's sympathies
inclined him were two or three sheepish countrymen, who were using the
inn somewhat after the fashion of a Turkish caravansary; they had
gotten themselves into the darkest corner of the room, and, heedless
of the Nicotian atmosphere, were supping on the bread of their own
ovens, and the bacon cured in their own chimney-smoke. But though
Robin felt a sort of brotherhood with these strangers, his eyes were
attracted from them to a person who stood near the door, holding
whispered conversation with a group of ill-dressed associates. His
features were separately striking almost to grotesqueness, and the
whole face left a deep impression on the memory. The forehead bulged
out into a double prominence, with a vale between; the nose came
boldly forth in an irregular curve, and its bridge was of more than
a finger's breadth; the eyebrows were deep and shaggy, and the eyes
glowed beneath them like fire in a cave.
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