The Robber, A Tale.James, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
General
The Robber, A Tale.
James, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
England -- Social life and customs -- 17th century -- Fiction
It is time, however, to turn to the traveller himself, who may not be
unworthy of some slight attention. Certain it is, that the good girl
who was now sprinkling the passage and porch behind him with fine sand,
thought that, he was worthy of such; for though she had seen him
before, and knew his person well, yet ever and anon she raised her eyes
to gaze over his figure, and vowed, in her heart, that he was as
good-looking a youth as ever she had set eyes on.
His age might be five or six and twenty, and his height, perhaps, five
feet eleven inches. He was both broad and deep-chested, that
combination which insures the greatest portion of strength, with length
and ease of breadth; and though his arms were not such as would have
called attention from their robustness, yet they were evidently
muscular and finely proportioned. Thin in the flanks, and with the
characteristic English hollow of the back, his lower limbs were
remarkably powerful, ending, however, in a small well-shaped foot and
ankle, set off to good advantage in a neat close-fitting shoe.
His countenance was as handsome as his figure, and remarkably
prepossessing; the features, slightly aquiline; the colouring, a rich
brown, though the eyes were found to be decidedly blue, when fully seen
through the black lashes. His hair waving round his face, and curling
upon his neck, was of a deep glossy brown, and the fine shaped lips,
which, in their natural position were slightly open, showed beneath a
row of even teeth as white as snow. The brow was broad, straight, and
high, with the eye-brow, that most expressive of all the features,
forming a wavy line of beauty, strongly marked upon the clear skin, and
growing somewhat thicker and deeper above the inner canthus of the eye.
Between the eyebrows, however, appeared the only thing that the most
fastidious critic of beauty could have objected to. It was a deep scar,
evidently the mark of a severe cut; whether received by accident in the
jocund days of boyhood, or in the manly sports of the country, or in
the field of battle, might be doubtful; but there it rested for ever, a
clear, long scar, beginning halfway up the forehead, and growing deeper
as it descended, till it formed a sort of indentation between the
eyebrows, similar to that produced in some countenances by a heavy
frown. Thus to look at the brow, one would have said the face was
stern; to look at the eyes, one might have pronounced it thoughtful;
but the bland, good-humoured, cheerful smile upon the lips contradicted
both, and spoke of a heart which fain would have been at ease, whose
own qualities were all bright, and warm, and gay, if the cares and
strifes of the world would but let them have way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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