The Beast With Five Fingers

Description

The story, I suppose, begins with Adrian Borlsover, whom I met when I

was a little boy and he an old man. My father had called to appeal for a

subscription, and before he left, Mr. Borlsover laid his right hand in

blessing on my head. I shall never forget the awe in which I gazed up at

his face and realized for the first time that eyes might be dark and

beautiful and shining and yet not able to see.



For Adrian Borlsover was blind.



He was an extraordinary man, who came of an eccentric stock. Borlsover

sons for some reason always seemed to marry very ordinary women, which

perhaps accounted for the fact that no Borlsover had been a genius and

only one Borlsover had been mad. But they were great champions of little

causes, generous patrons of odd sciences, founders of querulous sects,

trustworthy guides to the bypath meadows of erudition.



Adrian was an authority on the fertilization of orchids. He had held at

one time the family living at Borlsover Conyers, until a congenital

weakness of the lungs obliged him to seek a less rigorous climate in the

sunny south-west watering-place where I had seen him. Occasionally he

would relieve one or other of the local clergy. My father described him

as a fine preacher, who gave long and inspiring sermons from what many

men would have considered unprofitable texts. “An excellent proof,” he

would add, “of the truth of the doctrine of direct verbal inspiration.”



Adrian Borlsover was exceedingly clever with his hands. His penmanship

was exquisite. He illustrated all his scientific papers, made his own

woodcuts, and carved the reredos that is at present the chief feature of

interest in the church at Borlsover Conyers.
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