The bandages and splints and drugs and swathings were all gone now, and his sole task was to gather strength.

The thin face was sallow no longer; it was the color of evening shadows; indeed he lay among the cushions seemingly no more than a gaunt shadow of the late afternoon, looking old and gray and weary.

They rolled along abusing each other, John sometimes gratefully threatening his friend with violence.
The victoria passed a stone house with wide lawns and an inhospitable air of wealth and importunate rank; over the sward two peacocks swung, ambulating like caravals in a green sea; and one expected a fine lady to come smiling and glittering from the door.

Oddly enough, though he had never seen the place before, it struck Harkless with a sense of familiarity.

"Who lives there ?" he asked abruptly.
"Who lives there?
On the left?
Why that--that is the Sherwood place," Meredith answered, in a tone which sounded as if he were not quite sure of it, but inclined to think his information correct.