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“Ah,” he remarked, “that vas alvays a faforite song of mine. And ton’t you remember how font of it our frient Safareen used to pe? He used to call for it regular efery Saturday night, schoost pefore supper in the old times. Ah, put that wass a strange peesiness. I haf never peen aple to think of it without perspiring.” And so saying, he dived into the pocket of his white linen jacket, and produced therefrom a red silk handkerchief, with which he mopped his beaming countenance until it shone again.

“Ay,” responded Farmer Donaldson, “that was the strangest thing as ever happened in these parts. I wonder if it will ever be cleared up.”

“You know my opinion apout that,” resumed the host, “I alvays said he vould turn up. But it is–let me see–yes, it is more that fife years ago. It wass on the night of the sefenteenth of Chooly, 1854; and here it is, the mittle of Aucust, 1859. Vell, vell, how the years go py! Safareen was a coot sort. I thought much of him, and woot like to see him once acain.”

“I don’t say but what he was a good fellow,” remarked one of the company; “but I can tell you he had a devil of a temper of his own when his blood was up. I remember one night in this very room when he had some words with Sam Dolsen about that black mare o’ his’n. He fired up like a tiger, and that scar on his cheek glowed like a carbuncle. It seemed as if it was going to crack open. I made sure he was going to drop into Sam, and he would ‘a done, too, if our landlord hadn’t interfered and calmed him down.”

“Yes, yes,” interrupted Farmer Donaldson; “Savareen had his tempers, no doubt, when he had been drinking more free than common; but he was a jolly feller, all the same. I wish he was with us at this moment.”

This sentiment was pretty generally re-echoed all round the festive board. Just then a rather heavy footstep was heard to enter the adjoining bar-room from outside. The landlord rose and passed out through the doorway, to see if his services were required. The door of communication was left open behind him, so that the company in the inner room had no difficulty in seeing and hearing everything that took place.

In the middle of the bar room stood a short heavy-set man, whose dress and bearing pronounced him to be a stranger in those parts. He was apparently middle-aged–say somewhere between thirty-five and forty. His clothing was of expensive material, but cut after a style more prononce than was then seen in Canada, or has ever since been much in vogue here. His hat was a broad-brimmed Panama, which cost twenty dollars if it cost a penny. His coat, so far as could be seen under his thin summer duster–was of fine bluish cloth, short of waist, long of skirt, and–the duster notwithstanding–plentifully besprinkled and travel-stained with dust. The waistcoat, which seemed to be of the same material as the coat, was very open-breasted, and displayed a considerable array of shirt front. Across the left side was hung a heavy gold watch-chain, from which depended two great bulbous-looking seals. On his feet he wore a pair of gaiters of patent leather, white from the dust of the road. In one hand he carried a light, jaunty Malacca cane, while the other grasped a Russian-leather portmanteau, called by him and by persons of his kind a valise. He wore no gloves–a fact which enabled you to see on the middle finger of his left hand a huge cluster diamond ring, worth any price from a thousand dollars upwards. His face was closely shaven, except for a prominent moustache. He had crisp, curling black hair, worn tolerably short. His eyes were rather dull and vacant, not because he was either slow or stupid, but because he felt or affected to feel, a sublime indifference to all things sublunary. You would have taken him for a man who had run the gauntlet of all human experiences–a man to whom nothing presented itself in the light of a novelty, and who disdained to appear much interested in anything you might say or do. Taken altogether he had that foreign or rather cosmopolitan look characteristic of the citizen of the United States who has led an unsettled, wandering life. His aspect was fully borne out by his accent, when he began to speak.