If you had searched from Yarmouth to Berwick the whole coast along you
could not have found a more superb creature. He stood six feet four, but
his limbs were so massive, and the outward arch of his broad chest was
so full, that you might easily have guessed his inches wrongly. As he
turned westward toward the last light that still glowed in dim bars from
behind the hills, his face showed with a noble outline. He looked round
for a space, said, "Ay, the lads'll be having a bonny night," then
strode heavily to his "settle" once more, and prepared to chat with his
daughter. When the lamp was lit, the grandeur of his face became finely
apparent. His hair was coarse, and black, and lustreless; it hung
heavily over a heavy brow. His jaw was square and powerful, but its
firmness was saved from seeming absolutely cruel by the kindly lines of
the mouth. Not a feature of the man was unmarked by signs of keenness
and strength. You would not have chosen him for an enemy unless you
happened to be a thought inexperienced. This was Mr. Thomas Casely. For
fifty-four years he had dwelt in that house on the cliff-edge; his
father still lived in one of the small cottages near by, and his
grandfather and great-grandfather had spent their lives in the same
village before him. Probably the progenitors of the Caselys and the
Ellingtons came over together on a thieving expedition, and, finding the
natives of the region amenable to emphatic arguments, settled quietly
and used their long vessels henceforth for comparatively honest
purposes.
A deal of very curious talk is spent over the ancient Scandinavians who
used to harry the peaceful farmers long ago. We learn that these
rapacious gentlemen were above all things "deep-thoughted," and that
they had rather fine notions about poetry and the future life. They
were, in short, a species of bloodthirsty AEsthetics. Instead of devoting
themselves to intense amours and sonnets, they were the Don Juans of
Death, but in no other point did they differ materially from the
cultured creature who lives up to his blue china.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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