His gait was a shambling trot that seemed slow, although, in truth, he was covering the ground with extraordinary swiftness.

Moreover, he moved so silently that even on the frost-held soil his step could not be heard, and so carefully that not a reed stirred as he threaded in and out among their clumps like an otter, his head crouched down and his long bow pointed before him as though it were a spear.

Half a minute more, and he was before them--a very strange man to see.

His years were not so many, thirty perhaps, and yet his face looked quite old because of its lack of colouring, its thinness, and the hard lines that marked where the muscles ran down to the tight, straight mouth and up to the big forehead, over which hung hair so light that at a little distance he seemed ashen-grey.

Only in this cold, rocky face, set very far apart, were two pale-blue eyes, which just now, when he chose to lift their lids that generally kept near together, as though he were half asleep, were full of fire and quick cunning.
Reaching the pair, this strange fellow dropped to his knee and raised his cap to Eve, the great lady of the Claverings--Red Eve, as they called her through that country-side.