"I have come to you, Nick, as always when my mind is in tribulation."
The speaker had a harsh voice, like a bellman's which has been ruined by shouting against crowds.He had got to his feet and seemed an elderly man,heavy in body, with legs too short for the proportions of his trunk. He wore a soldier's coat and belt, but no sword. His age might have been fifty, but his face was so reddened by weather that it was hard to judge.The thick straight black locks had little silver in them,but the hair that sprouted from a mole on the chin was grey. His cheeks were full and the heavy mouth was pursed like that of a man in constant painful meditation. He looked at first sight a grazier from the shires or some new-made squire of a moderate estate.But the eyes forbade that conclusion. There was something that brooded and commanded in those eyes,something that might lock the jaw like iron and make their possessor a hammer to break or bend the world.Mr. Lovel stirred the fire very deliberately and sat himself in the second of the two winged chairs.