In less than a minute it was my turn to alight. Unlike the
matrimonial agent, I had not two half-crowns to spare; but, catching
the sick woman's eye, forced up courage to nod and say--
"Good luck, my boy."
"Good day, sir."
A moment after I was in the hot crowd, whose roar rolled east and
west for miles. And at the back of it, as the woman had said, in
street and side-lane and blind-alley, I heard the footfall of a
multitude more terrible than an army with banners, the ceaseless
pelting feet of children--of Whittingtons turning and turning again.
FORTUNIO.
At Tregarrick Fair they cook a goose in twenty-two different ways;
and as no one who comes to the fair would dream of eating any other
food, you may fancy what a reek of cooking fills the narrow grey
street soon after mid-day.
As a boy, I was always given a holiday to go to the goose-fair; and
it was on my way thither across the moors, that I first made
Fortunio's acquaintance. I wore a new pair of corduroys, that smelt
outrageously--and squeaked, too, as I trotted briskly along the bleak
high road; for I had a bright shilling to spend, and it burnt a hole
in my pocket. I was planning my purchases, when I noticed, on a
windy eminence of the road ahead, a man's figure sharply defined
against the sky.
He was driving a flock of geese, so slowly that I soon caught him up;
and such a man or such geese I had never seen.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25