"It was there that several years ago I saw him for the first time; and the sight pulled me up sharp. Even then he was the most striking figure in Starkfield though he was but the ruin of a man. It was not so much his great height that marked him for the "natives" were easily singled out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the careless powerful look he had in spite of a lameness checking each step like the jerk of a chain. There was something bleak and unapproachable in his face and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two. I had this from Harmon Gow who had driven the stage from Bettsbridge to Starkfield in pre-trolley days and knew the chronicle of all the families on his line."