Mark Hurdlestone's remarkable person would have formed a good subject
for a painter--it was both singular and striking.
His features in youth had been handsome, but of that peculiar Jewish
cast which age renders harsh and prominent. The high narrow wrinkled
forehead, the small deep-set jet-black eyes, gleaming like living coals
from beneath straight shaggy eyebrows, the thin aquiline nose, the long
upper lip, the small fleshless mouth and projecting chin, the expression
of habitual cunning and mental reservation, mingled with sullen pride
and morose ill-humor, gave to his marked countenance a repulsive and
sinister character. Those who looked upon him once involuntarily turned
to look upon him again, and marvelled and speculated upon the
disposition and calling of the stranger.
His dress, composed of the coarsest materials, generally hung in tatters
about his tall spare figure, and he had been known to wear the cast-off
shoes of a beggar; yet, in spite of such absurd acts, he maintained a
proud and upright carriage, and never, by his speech or manners, seemed
to forget for one moment that he held the rank of a gentleman. His hands
and face were always scrupulously clean, for water costs nothing, and
time, to him, was an object of little value. The frequency of these
ablutions he considered conducive to health.
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