Linton was a character in his way, a self-taught antiquarian, a nature lover, a dormant poet, an incipient artist, and something of a philosopher round it all. Who knows what strange dreams he may have dreamed in his youth, of fame to be won and songs to be uttered? But life's obligations had proved too heavy a burden, and his was still a mute inglorious muse. His delight in Miss Aubrey's sketches was almost pathetic; he would toddle far out of his way to pass her easel, and take a peep at the progress of some roadside scene or cottage garden. He even volunteered, one evening, to find her a subject, and to please him, she and Katrine allowed him to escort them to the summit of a mound near the river. The place without doubt was an ancient grave, for it was close to Offa's dyke, the great eighth-century barrier between Saxon and Celt, and though from an artistic point of view it was not paintable, the romance of its situation was palpable. To Miss Aubrey and Katrine the true subject was the white-haired, rugged old fellow himself, standing outlined against the glowing west, as with outstretched hand he showed where the slain in the forgotten battle-field had been heaped, and the earth piled high above them. His voice rang as he tried to picture the far-off scene, and there shone from his eyes just a gleam of the divine fire. "Look around you!" he cried. "See where yon river's a-windin' down, and yon hills a-stand back as they did a thousand years agone. Aye! I often comes hither and thinks what a sight it will be for their uprising!" Of all the quaint village folk perhaps the funniest was Mrs. Stubbs, who kept a little shop at the corner of the High Street. It was nominally a green-grocer's, but it included so many other things as well, that it might fairly claim to be a china store, a second-hand bookseller's, and a repository of antiquities. Though the counter was spread with cabbages and cauliflowers, the floor was covered with crockery, and the small parlour behind was overflowing with old furniture and all kinds of oddments picked up at auctions--eighteenth-century chairs, bow-shaped mirrors, ancient etchings and engravings, Wedgwood plates, Toby jugs, horn lanterns, tortoise-shell tea-caddies, blunderbusses, cases of butterflies, clocks, snuff-boxes, medallions, pewter dishes, and a vast number of other articles. Mrs. Stubbs had a genius for a bargain. She was a familiar figure at every sale in the district, where she would bid successfully even against hook-nosed individuals of the Hebrew persuasion, and bear off her spoils in triumph. She knew the marketable value of most of her antiques to the last halfpenny, and carried on a successful little business by disposing of them to London dealers, or to collectors in the neighbourhood, often at double the prices she had originally paid for them.