His long matted beard and hair had once been white, but the sun out of doors and the smoke in his smoky hut had given them a yellowish tinge, so that they looked like dry dead grass.

He wore big jack-boots, patched all over, and full of cracks and holes; and a great pea-jacket, rusty and ragged, fastened with horn buttons big as saucers.

His old brimless hat looked like a dilapidated tea-cosy on his head, and to prevent it from being carried off by the wind it was kept on with an old flannel shirtsleeve tied under his chin.

His saddle, too, like his clothes, was old and full of rents, with wisps of hair and straw-stuffing sticking out in various places, and his feet were thrust into a pair of big stirrups made of pieces of wood and rusty iron tied together with string and wire.
[Illustration: ] "Boy, what may you being a doing of here ?" bawled this old man at the top of his voice: for he was as deaf as a post, and like a good many deaf people thought it necessary to speak very loud to make himself heard.
"Playing," answered Martin innocently.

But he could not make the old man hear until he stood up on tip-toe and shouted out his answer as loud as he could.
"Playing," exclaimed the old man.