"
"Well said, old father!" cried the traveller, laughing; "and, if the
truth must be told, my companion and myself need some amends. Those
children (the little rascals!) have bespattered us finely with their mud
balls; and one of the curs has torn my cloak, which was ragged enough
already. But I took him across the muzzle with my staff; and I think you
may have heard him yelp, even thus far off."
Philemon was glad to see him in such good spirits; nor, indeed, would
you have fancied, by the traveller's look and manner, that he was weary
with a long day's journey, besides being disheartened by rough treatment
at the end of it. He was dressed in rather an odd way, with a sort of
cap on his head, the brim of which stuck out over both ears. Though it
was a summer evening, he wore a cloak, which he kept wrapt closely about
him, perhaps because his undergarments were shabby. Philemon perceived,
too, that he had on a singular pair of shoes; but, as it was now growing
dusk, and as the old man's eyesight was none the sharpest, he could not
precisely tell in what the strangeness consisted. One thing, certainly,
seemed queer. The traveller was so wonderfully light and active that it
appeared as if his feet sometimes rose from the ground of their own
accord, or could only be kept down by an effort.
"I used to be light footed, in my youth," said Philemon to the
traveller.
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