'Where did
you meet him?'
'On the Fell, about a quarter of a mile from the shrubbery gate.'
'_Did_ you? I shouldn't have thought he could have got so far. I've a
good mind to take you to see him, this very afternoon, before we go
home.'
'Do,' exclaimed Hammond, 'I should like it immensely. I thought him a
hateful-looking old person; but there was something so thoroughly
uncanny about him that he exercised an absolute fascination upon me: he
magnetised me, I think, as the green-eyed cat magnetises the bird. I
have been positively longing to see him again. He is a kind of human
monster, and I hope some one will have a big bottle made ready for him
and preserve him in spirits when he dies.'
'What a horrid idea! No, sir, dear old Barlow shall lie beside the
Rotha, under the trees Wordsworth planted. He is such a man as
Wordsworth would have loved.'
Mr. Hammond shrugged his shoulders, and said no more. Mary's little
vehement ways, her enthusiasm, her love of that valley, which might be
called her native place, albeit her eyes had opened upon heaven's light
far away, her humility, were all very delightful in their way.
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