There he sat, quite motionless among those restless flies; and, with a sound like the low noon murmur of foliage in the woods, turning over the leaves of some ancient and tattered folio, with a binding dark and shaggy as the bark of any old oak.

It seemed as if supernatural lore must needs pertain to this gravely, ruddy personage; at least far foresight, pleasant wit, and working wisdom.

Old age seemed in no wise to have dulled him, but to have sharpened; just as old dinner-knives--so they be of good steel--wax keen, spear-pointed, and elastic as whale-bone with long usage.

Yet though he was thus lively and vigorous to behold, spite of his seventy-two years (his exact date at that time) somehow, the incredible seniority of an antediluvian seemed his.

Not the years of the calendar wholly, but also the years of sapience.