The rake or pitchfork, or whatever it was, he used sometimes
as an alpenstock, sometimes (I was told) as a weapon.
I do not know why he should have used it as a weapon, for he had,
and afterwards showed me, an excellent six-shooter in his pocket.
`But THAT,' he said, `I use only for peaceful purposes.'
I have no notion what he meant.
"He sat down on the rough bench outside my inn and drank some wine
from the vineyards below, sighing with ecstasy over it like one
who had travelled long among alien, cruel things and found at last
something that he knew. Then he sat staring rather foolishly at
the rude lantern of lead and coloured glass that hangs over my door.
It is old, but of no value; my grandmother gave it to me long ago:
she was devout, and it happens that the glass is painted with a crude
picture of Bethlehem and the Wise Men and the Star. He seemed
so mesmerized with the transparent glow of Our Lady's blue gown and
the big gold star behind, that he led me also to look at the thing,
which I had not done for fourteen years.
"Then he slowly withdrew his eyes from this and looked out eastward
where the road fell away below us. The sunset sky was a vault
of rich velvet, fading away into mauve and silver round the edges
of the dark mountain amphitheatre; and between us and the ravine below
rose up out of the deeps and went up into the heights the straight
solitary rock we call Green Finger.
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