He pulled his greatcoat tighter around him, and, removing his cloth-cap, sat down upon it very gravely, as if it had been a wishing-carpet.

The passersby upon the pavement hardly turned to notice the bareheaded man with an oak-stick across his knees. They were Blacksod burgesses and had their own affairs to attend to. A tuft of vividly green grass grew between some uneven bricks in front of him; and he regarded its sturdy, transparent blades with concentrated interest.

“Grass and clay!” he thought to himself. “From clay to grass and then from grass to clay!” And once more that peculiar kind of shivering ran through him, which a coincidence of physical cold with amorous excitement is apt to produce, especially when some fatal step of unknown consequence is trembling in suspension.