When Mr. Severn left the station he struck up the ravine behind St. Aubin's where the road inland ran. As he passed the tumble-down, crooked old stone houses, whose gloomy dampness made them scarcely fit for cattle, various old crones and children came out to stare at him. There was not so tall a man on the island. They knew nothing of Anakims as personified in Yorkshire dalesmen. His height, his massive limbs and breadth of shoulder, his jet-black hair, fresh colour and gleaming teeth, were a revelation to them. A group of market-people waiting at the station for Corbière pressed up to the railings and made audible remarks. They were in French, however, and he did not understand. Seeing them look interested, he nodded, then raised his hat. He was less interested in them than he had been a little earlier by a water-wheel against the road which imprisoned a silvery stream that shot over the edge of a brambly bank above. A little farther on was a quarry, over whose stone he stood some moments speculating. It struck into the heart of the hill, an ochreous blotch against the dense velvetiness of the furze. A man in a blue blouse was chipping at its base. These touched at once his love of colour, and his instincts as steward for a large estate where earths and rocks were in constant consideration. There was a short cut below the quarry to St. Brelade's, but he did not take it. He and Clothilde Hugo had not taken the short cuts when together, and he remembered a point on the road which she had showed him from whence there was a glimpse of the white houses of St. Helier's gleaming against the amethystine sea in a land-locked setting. He went round by the road and loitered a little, thinking of her.