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in and out in all intricate spots, crept between people's legs and
carriage wheels, and came forth unharmed from under horses' hoofs.
The dancing-dogs, the stilts, the little lady and the tall man, and all
the other attractions, with organs out of number and bands
innumerable, emerged from the holes and corners in which they had
passed the night, and flourished boldly in the sun.
Along the uncleared course, Short led his party, sounding the brazen
trumpet and revelling in the voice of Punch; and at his heels went
Thomas Codlin, bearing the show as usual, and keeping his eye on
Nelly and her grandfather, as they rather lingered in the rear. The
child bore upon her arm the little basket with her flowers, and
sometimes stopped, with timid and modest looks, to offer them at
some gay carriage; but alas! there were many bolder beggars there,
gipsies who promised husbands, and other adepts in their trade, and
although some ladies smiled gently as they shook their heads, and
others cried to the gentlemen beside them 'See, what a pretty face!'
they let the pretty face pass on, and never thought that it looked tired
or hungry.
There was but one lady who seemed to understand the child, and she
was one who sat alone in a handsome carriage, while two young men
in dashing clothes, who had just dismounted from it, talked and
laughed loudly at a little distance, appearing to forget her, quite. There
were many ladies all around, but they turned their backs, or looked
another way, or at the two young men (not unfavourably at them), and
left her to herself. She motioned away a gipsy-woman urgent to tell
her fortune, saying that it was told already and had been for some
years, but called the child towards her, and taking her flowers put
money into her trembling hand, and bade her go home and keep at
home for God's sake.
Many a time they went up and down those long, long lines, seeing
everything but the horses and the race; when the bell rang to clear the
course, going back to rest among the carts and donkeys, and not
coming out again until the heat was over. Many a time, too, was
Punch displayed in the full zenith of his humour, but all this while the
eye of Thomas Codlin was upon them, and to escape without notice
was impracticable.
At length, late in the day, Mr Codlin pitched the show in a convenient
spot, and the spectators were soon in the very triumph of the scene.
The child, sitting down with the old man close behind it, had been
thinking how strange it was that horses who were such fine honest
creatures should seem to make vagabonds of all the men they drew
about them, when a loud laugh at some extemporaneous witticism of
Mr Short's, having allusion to the circumstances of the day, roused
her from her meditation and caused her to look around.
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