He was a man of remarkable appearance, of very broad shoulders and long
arms; but with legs so bowed outward as to materially lower his
stature, which would have been short at best, and convert his gait into
an absurd waddle. His face was disfigured by a scar across one cheek
that so drew that corner of his mouth downward as to produce a
peculiarly forbidding expression. He also wore a bristling iron-grey
beard that grew in form of a fringe or ruff, and added an air of
ferocity to his make up.
As this striking-looking individual entered the cabin and rolled into a
seat at the table, he cast one glance, accompanied by a grunt, at
Cabot, and then proceeded to attend strictly to the business in hand.
He ate in such prodigious haste, and gulped his food in such vast
mouthfuls, that he had cleaned the table of its last crumb, and was
fiercely stuffing black tobacco into a still blacker pipe, before
Cabot, who really wished to talk with him, had decided how to open the
conversation. Lighting his pipe and puffing it into a ruddy glow, Mr.
Gidge made a waddling exit from the cabin, bestowing on our lad another
grunt as he passed him, and leaving an eddying wake of rank tobacco
smoke to mark his passage.
For some time after this episode Cabot struggled to keep awake in the
hope that White would return and answer some of his questions; but
finally weariness overcame him, and he fell into a sleep that lasted
without a break until after sunrise of the following morning.
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