They are clad in a rude garb of black or brown
sheep-skin; they have high conical hats, and coarse sandals of cloth
bound round their legs with thongs, similar to those worn by the
robbers. They carry long staffs, on which as they lean they form
picturesque objects in the lonely landscape, and they are followed by
their ever-constant companion, the dog. They are a curious, questioning
set, glad at any time to relieve the monotony of their solitude by the
conversation of the passerby, and the dog will lend an attentive ear,
and put on as sagacious and inquisitive a look as his master.
But I am wandering from my story. I was now left alone with one of the
robbers, the confidential companion of the chief. He was the youngest
and most vigorous of the band, and though his countenance had something
of that dissolute fierceness which seems natural to this desperate,
lawless mode of life, yet there were traits of manly beauty about it.
As an artist I could not but admire it. I had remarked in him an air of
abstraction and reverie, and at times a movement of inward suffering
and impatience. He now sat on the ground; his elbows on his knees, his
head resting between his clenched fists, and his eyes fixed on the
earth with an expression of sad and bitter rumination. I had grown
familiar with him from repeated conversations, and had found him
superior in mind to the rest of the band. I was anxious to seize every
opportunity of sounding the feelings of these singular beings.
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