He was by no means a bad hero to look at, if such a thing were needed.

His face was pale, melancholy, statuesque--and his large enthusiastic eyes, suggested a story and a secret--perhaps a horror.
Most men, had they known all, would have wondered with good Doctor Walsingham, why, of all places in the world, he should have chosen the little town where he now stood for even a temporary residence.

It was not a perversity, but rather a fascination.

His whole life had been a flight and a pursuit--a vain endeavour to escape from the evil spirit that pursued him--and a chase of a chimera.
He was standing at the window, not indeed enjoying, as another man might, the quiet verdure of the scene, and the fragrant air, and all the mellowed sounds of village life, but lost in a sad and dreadful reverie, when in bounced little red-faced bustling Dr.Toole--the joke and the chuckle with which he had just requited the fat old barmaid still ringing in the passage--'Stay there, sweetheart,' addressed to a dog squeezing by him, and which screeched out as he kicked it neatly round the door-post.
'Hey, your most obedient, Sir,' cried the doctor, with a short but grand bow, affecting surprise, though his chief object in visiting the back parlour at that moment was precisely to make a personal inspection of the stranger.

'Pray, don't mind me, Sir,--your--ho! Breakfast ended, eh?
Coffee not so bad, Sir; rather good coffee, I hold it, at the Phoenix.
Cream very choice, Sir ?--I don't tell 'em so though (a wink); it might not improve it, you know.