| 138 | 139 | 140 | 141 | 142 |
| 1 | 133 | 265 | 398 | 530 |
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other, horses clattered on the uneven stones, carriage steps fell
rattling down, and sickening smells from many dinners came in a
heavy lukewarm breath upon the sense. In the smaller public-houses,
fiddles with all their might and main were squeaking out the tune to
staggering feet; drunken men, oblivious of the burden of their song,
joined in a senseless howl, which drowned the tinkling of the feeble
bell and made them savage for their drink; vagabond groups
assembled round the doors to see the stroller woman dance, and add
their uproar to the shrill flageolet and deafening drum.
Through this delirious scene, the child, frightened and repelled by all
she saw, led on her bewildered charge, clinging close to her conductor,
and trembling lest in the press she should be separated from him and
left to find her way alone. Quickening their steps to get clear of all the
roar and riot, they at length passed through the town and made for
the race-course, which was upon an open heath, situated on an
eminence, a full mile distant from its furthest bounds.
Although there were many people here, none of the best favoured or
best clad, busily erecting tents and driving stakes in the ground, and
hurrying to and fro with dusty feet and many a grumbled oath -
although there were tired children cradled on heaps of straw between
the wheels of carts, crying themselves to sleep - and poor lean horses
and donkeys just turned loose, grazing among the men and women,
and pots and kettles, and half-lighted fires, and ends of candles
flaring and wasting in the air - for all this, the child felt it an escape
from the town and drew her breath more freely. After a scanty supper,
the purchase of which reduced her little stock so low, that she had
only a few halfpence with which to buy a breakfast on the morrow,
she and the old man lay down to rest in a corner of a tent, and slept,
despite the busy preparations that were going on around them all
night long.
And now they had come to the time when they must beg their bread.
Soon after sunrise in the morning she stole out from the tent, and
rambling into some fields at a short distance, plucked a few wild roses
and such humble flowers, purposing to make them into little nosegays
and offer them to the ladies in the carriages when the company
arrived. Her thoughts were not idle while she was thus employed;
when she returned and was seated beside the old man in one corner
of the tent, tying her flowers together, while the two men lay dozing in
another corner, she plucked him by the sleeve, and slightly glancing
towards them, said, in a low voice -
'Grandfather, don't look at those I talk of, and don't seem as if I spoke
of anything but what I am about. What was that you told me before we
left the old house? That if they knew what we were going to do, they
would say that you were mad, and part us?'
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