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At the twist of a road in the hills, where two trees stood up like pyramids much tallerthan the small village of Potter’s Pond, just a group of houses, there once walked a man in a costume of a very interesting cut and colour, wearing a bright magenta jacketand a white hat on top of black beautiful hair.
The riddle of why he was wearing clothes so old, yet wearing them with such a fashion, was but one of the many riddles[1]that were eventually solved in solving the mystery[2]of his fate. The point here is that when he had passed the trees he seemed to have disappeared; as if he had faded into the dawn or been blown away upon the wind of morning.
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The priest continued to think about that conversation with the poet. An inner feeling told himthat the strong young man was eaten from within by some grief[39]greater even than the ordinary story of ordinary parents being a difficultyto the course of true love. It was all the more so, because there were not any other reasons. The boy already had literary and dramatic success; his books might be said to be very popular. Nor did he drink or spend away his well-earned money[40]. At his well-knownvisits at the Blue Lion he drank only one glass of light ale; and he seemed to be rather careful with his money. Father Brown thought of another possible difficulty in connection with Hurrel’s large earnings and small expenses; and his brow darkened[41].
The conversation of Miss Carstairs-Carew, on whom he called next[42], was made to paint the priest’s son in the darkest colours[43]. But because it was about him having all the vices which Father Brown was quite sure the young man did not have[44], he put it down to a usualmix of Puritanism and gossip. The lady, though big, was quite elegant, however, and offered the visitor a small glass of port-wine and a piece of seed-cake, in the manner of everybody’s oldest great-aunts, before he managed to avoid a speech about the general fall of morals and manners[45].
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