Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 3, 1895 - Travels and Excursions, Volume II

THE TOLL HOUSE
ogling, well-shod lady with her troop of girls ; they
did but flash and go ; they were hull-down for us
behind life's ocean, and we but hailed their topsails
on the hne. Yet, out of our great solitude of four-
and-twenty mountain hours, we thrilled to their
momentary presence ; gauged and divined them,
loved and hated; and stood light-headed in that
storm of human electricity. Yes, like Piccadilly
Circus, this is also one of hfe's crossing-places.
Here I beheld one man, already famous, or infamous,
a centre of pistol-shots : and another who, if not yet
known to rumour, will fill a column of the Sunday
paper when he comes to hang — a burly, thickset,
powerful Chinese desperado, six long bristles upon
either lip ; redolent of whisky, playing cards, and
pistols ; swaggering in the bar with the lowest
assumption of the lowest European manners ; rap-
ping out blackguard English oaths in his canorous
Oriental voice ; and combining in one person the
depravities of two races and two civilisations. For
all his lust and vigour he seemed to look cold upon
me from the valley of the shadow of the gallows.
He imagined a vain thing ; and while he drained his
cocktail, Holbein's Death was at his elbow. Once,
too, I fell in talk with another of these flitting
strangers— like the rest, in his shirt-sleeves and all
begrimed with dust — and the next minute we were
discussing Paris and London, theatres and wines.
To him, journeying from one human place to an-
other, this was a trifle ; but to me ! No, Mr. Lillie,
I have not forgotten it.
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