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The name had long been a familiar one, and he had often had the man pictured out before him, just such a wizened face and hunched-up figure, half crazed, at times malicious, yet keen and absolutely devoid of fear; acknowledged as the best scout in all the Indian country, a daring rider, an incomparable trailer, tireless, patient, and as tricky and treacherous as the wily savages he was employed to spy upon.
Already he was looking better for the change. But I could not refrain from adding: "You wrote 'The Diamond Gate' without turning a hair. Why should you worry yourself to death about this new book?" When he answered I had the shivering impression of a wizened old man speaking to me. The slight cast I had noticed in his blue eyes became oddly accentuated.
Its occupant, a lank man with a smooth but wizened face, straight white hair and dark, piercing eyes, was in accord with his surroundings, shabby, unkempt, with cigarette ash down the front of his coat, his collar none too clean, his tie awry. "Hm!" Wingate remarked, "Seems to me you're not taking care of yourself, Andrew. Do you mind if I open a window or two?"
Old Harry Verney, the other keeper, was a character in his way, and a very bad character too, though he was a patriarch among all the gamekeepers of the vale. He was a short, wiry, bandy-legged, ferret-visaged old man, with grizzled hair, and a wizened face tanned brown and purple by constant exposure.
There he lay, silent and, as it turned out afterwards, dead as a door-nail, the strangest old fellow ever eyes looked upon, dressed in shabby sorrel-coloured clothes of antique cut, with a long grey beard upon his chin, pent-roof eyebrows, and a wizened complexion so puckered and tanned by exposure to Heaven only knew what weathers that it was impossible to guess his nationality.
Was this Madame Danterre? the rival of Rose, the real love of David Bright? What he saw was an incredibly wizened old woman who yet held herself with considerable grace and walked with quick, long steps on the burnt grass a little ahead of the attendants, one of whom carried a deck chair, while the other was laden with cushions and books.
Acting on this hypothesis, of which he was now half-convinced, Stern nodded. By gesture-play he answered: Yes. Yes, this woman and he intended to drink of the water. The obeah-man, grinning, showed signs of lively interest. His eyes brightened, and a look of craft, of wizened cunning crept over his uncanny features.
From a second carriage there emerged an athletic brown-faced young fellow accompanied by a small wizened gentleman in spotless attire, who was in such a state of nervousness that he dropped his lavender glove twice on his way up the aisle.
Thus talking glibly about what was more interesting to her than anything else in the world, Liz followed Gladys into the kitchen, where the old man sat, as usual, in his arm-chair by the fireside, looking very old and wizened and frail in the flickering glow of fire and candle light.
There was a concerted cry for "Ebo," and a wizened, grey negro in a threadbare drugget coat with a scarlet handkerchief about his throat came forward and, kicking aside the dogs, commenced the ascent of the smooth trunk that swept up to the obscure foliage above. There was a short delay, then a violent agitation of branches.