Not that his thoughts were definitely of agreeable
things; consciously he thought perhaps of nothing at all; but he liked the
sunshine and country quiet, and the sense of momentary independence. Every
one would have known him for what he was. His dress, his gait, his
countenance, declared the under-master. Mr. Ruddiman never carried a
walking-stick; that would have seemed to him to be arrogating a social
position to which he had no claim. Generally he held his hands together
behind him; if not so, one of them would dip its fingers into a waistcoat
pocket and the other grasp the lapel of his coat. If anything he looked
rather less than his age, a result, perhaps, of having always lived with
the young. His features were agreeably insignificant; his body, though
slight of build, had something of athletic outline, due to long practice at
cricket, football, and hockey.
If he had rather more time than usual at his disposal he walked as far as
the Pig and Whistle, a picturesque little wayside inn, which stood alone,
at more than a mile from the nearest village. To reach the Pig and Whistle
one climbed a long, slow ascent, and in warm weather few pedestrians, or,
for the matter of that, folks driving or riding, could resist the
suggestion of the ivy-shadowed porch which admitted to the quaint parlour.
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