Then he never drank anything worthy of the name of drink--seldom anything but water or milk! That he never ate animal food was not so notable where many never did so from one year's end to another's.

As he was no propagandist, few had any notion of his opinions, beyond a general impression that they were unsound.
Cosmo had heard some of the peculiarities attributed to him, and was filled with curious expectation as to the manner of man he was about to meet, for, oddly enough, he had never yet seen him except at a distance; but anxiety, not untinged with awe, was mingled with his curiosity.
Mr.Simon's cottage was some distance up the valley, at an angle where it turned westward.

It stood on the left bank of the Warlock, at the foot of a small cliff that sheltered it from the north, while in front the stream came galloping down to it from the sunset.

The immediate bank between the cottage and the water was rocky and dry, but the ground on which the cottage stood was soil washed from the hills.

There Mr.Simon had a little garden for flowers and vegetables, with a summer seat in which he smoked his pipe of an evening--for, however inconsistent the habit may seem with the rest of the man, smoke he did: slowly and gently and broodingly did the man smoke, thinking a great deal more than he smoked, and making his one pipe last a long time.