Even his own servants never knew how to come nigh him. One at the stables would touch his hat, and he would kick him for reply; then another would come without ceremony, and he knocked him down to learn it. Also in the house, the maidens had the same account to give. However much they might think of themselves, and adorn themselves to that estimate, he never was known to do so much as to chuck any one of them under the chin, as they had been at all other places much in the habit of feeling; neither did he make a joke to excuse himself for omitting it. As to that, they would scorn themselves ever to think of permitting it, being young women of high respect, and quite aware how to conduct themselves. But they might have liked to stop him, and they got no chance of doing it. All this small-talk almost vexed me more than the content it gave. Every now and then I could see the man in these little corner views, but they did not show me round him so as to get his girth and substance. "Think of the devil," is an old saying; and while I thought of him, in he walked. At the very first glimpse of him, all those people who had been talking so freely about him shrank away, and said, "Servant, sir!" and looked so foolish more than usual, that he read them with one eye. He had his riding-clothes on now, and it made him look still sharper. "Talking of me, good people, eh? I hope the subject pleases you. Open your ranks, if you please, and show me whether my groom is behind you." He cracked a great hunting-whip as he spoke, and it seemed a poor prospect for the groom, wherever he might be loitering. "Plaize your honour, your honour's groom have not been here all day a'most; and if her coom'th, us 'ont keep un." "In that resolution you are wise. What! you here, Welshman? I marked you to-day. You will come to me by noon to-morrow. Here is for your charges." He threw on the table two crown-pieces, and was gone before I knew what answer I was bound to make to him. The men, recovering from his presence, ran to the window to watch him as far as the flaring lights of the fair, now spluttering low, displayed him. Without being able to see so much as I strongly desired to see of him, I could not help admiring now his look, and his manner, and strong steady gait, and the general style of his outward man. His free way of going along made clear the excellence of his clothing; and he swung his right elbow, as I was told, from his constant desire to lash a horse. He was the devil himself to ride, so everybody said of him; and Parson Chowne's horse was now become a by-word for any one thoroughly thrashed. And yet no other man must ever dare to touch his horses. If any one did, no deadlier outrage could be put upon him.