He was taciturn also, for he had been taught the value of silence by his parents, though in his narrowed glances men had been made to see a suggestion of action that was more eloquent than speech.

He was a slumbering volcano of passion that might at any time become active and destroying.
Gazing now from under the brim of his hat at the desolate, silent world that swept away from the base of the hill on whose crest he sat, his lips curved with a slow, bitter sneer.

During the time he had been on the hill he had lived over his life and he saw its bleakness, its emptiness, its mystery.

This was his country.

He had been born here; he had passed days, months, years, in this valley.