About six in the evening I came out of the moorland to a white
ribbon of road which wound up the narrow vale of a lowland
stream. As I followed it, fields gave place to bent, the glen became
a plateau, and presently I had reached a kind of pass where a
solitary house smoked in the twilight. The road swung over a
bridge, and leaning on the parapet was a young man.
He was smoking a long clay pipe and studying the water with
spectacled eyes. In his left hand was a small book with a finger
marking the place. Slowly he repeated--
As when a Gryphon through the wilderness
With winged step, o'er hill and moory dale
Pursues the Arimaspian.
He jumped round as my step rung on the keystone, and I saw a
pleasant sunburnt boyish face.
'Good evening to you,' he said gravely. 'It's a fine night for
the road.'
The smell of peat smoke and of some savoury roast floated to me
from the house.
'Is that place an inn?' I asked.
'At your service,' he said politely. 'I am the landlord, Sir, and I
hope you will stay the night, for to tell you the truth I have had no
company for a week.'
I pulled myself up on the parapet of the bridge and filled my
pipe. I began to detect an ally.
'You're young to be an innkeeper,' I said.
'My father died a year ago and left me the business. I live there
with my grandmother.
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