Archibald had been up many hours. He had breakfasted, and now he was taking a morning stroll along the village street, which was little other than a high ledge cut into the mountain-side.
He was forty or thereabout, but did not resent being thought older, and never corrected the miscalculations of acquaintances when they added a half-score years to his age. He was tall, with broad shoulders, a straight back, and legs that took long, energetic strides. His hair was light and rather thin; his face strong and rugged from exposure, and his eyes narrow and observant. He beat about with his stick as he walked, turning over pebbles and small stones, and sometimes uprooting a weed or flower that grew in his path.
The village sprawled along the gradual slope of a mountain side. The few streets rising one above the other were irregular in their tortuous effort to cuddle up to the houses that were built hap-hazard and wide apart. Flights of wooden steps, black and weather-stained, connected the streets with each other. Fruit trees were in bloom, making a pink and white blur against the blue sky and the gray, rocky slopes. Birds were piping in the hedges. It had rained, but the sun was shining now and riotous odors were abroad; they met him with every velvety gust that softly beat into his face. Now and again he straightened his shoulders and shook his head with an impatient movement, as might some proud animal which rebels against an unaccustomed burden.
The spring was nothing new to him, nor was its sounds, its perfumes, its colors; nor was its tender and caressing breath; but, for some unaccountable reason, these were reaching him to-day through unfamiliar channels.
