His Christian name was the same as my own, which I felt to constitute a sort of connection; and the tales I had heard in the village of his peculiarities had woven a sort of ecclesiastical romance about him in my mind.

He had come from some out-of-the-way parish in the west of England, where his people, being thoroughly used to his ways, took them as a matter of course.

It was his scrupulous custom to conform as minutely as possible to the canons of the Church, as well as to the rubrics of the Prayer Book, and this to the point of wearing shoes instead of boots.

He was a learned man, a naturalist, and an antiquarian.

His appearance was remarkable, his hair being prematurely white, and yet thick, his eyes grey and expressive, with thick dark eyebrows, which actually met above them.