The Broad Highway

It was toward evening of the next day that the door of my prison was opened, and two men entered. The first was a tall, cadaverous-looking individual of a melancholy cast of feature, who, despite the season, was wrapped in a long frieze coat reaching almost to his heels, from the pocket of which projected a short staff, or truncheon. He came forward with his hands in his pockets, and his bony chin on his breast, looking at me under the brim of a somewhat weather-beaten hat -- that is to say, he looked at my feet and my hands and my throat and my chin, but never seemed to get any higher.

His companion, on the contrary, bustled forward, and, tapping me familiarly on the shoulder, looked me over with a bright, appraising eye.