I have no idea that he
really lacked sustenance; but it was quite touching, nevertheless, to
hear him nibbling away at our crusts.
"Mr. Moodie," said I, "do you remember selling me one of those very
pretty little silk purses, of which you seem to have a monopoly in
the market? I keep it to this day, I can assure you."
"Ah, thank you," said our guest. "Yes, Mr. Coverdale, I used to sell
a good many of those little purses."
He spoke languidly, and only those few words, like a watch with an
inelastic spring, that just ticks a moment or two and stops again.
He seemed a very forlorn old man. In the wantonness of youth,
strength, and comfortable condition,--making my prey of people's
individualities, as my custom was,--I tried to identify my mind with
the old fellow's, and take his view of the world, as if looking
through a smoke-blackened glass at the sun. It robbed the landscape
of all its life. Those pleasantly swelling slopes of our farm,
descending towards the wide meadows, through which sluggishly circled
the brimful tide of the Charles, bathing the long sedges on its
hither and farther shores; the broad, sunny gleam over the winding
water; that peculiar picturesqueness of the scene where capes and
headlands put themselves boldly forth upon the perfect level of the
meadow, as into a green lake, with inlets between the promontories;
the shadowy woodland, with twinkling showers of light falling into
its depths; the sultry heat-vapor, which rose everywhere like incense,
and in which my soul delighted, as indicating so rich a fervor in
the passionate day, and in the earth that was burning with its love,--
I beheld all these things as through old Moodie's eyes.
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