rous of a whiff from his pipe. They
had it, and lay down silent, back to back. Bystop was led away in a
wretched plight. Two others, Paynter and Ashworth, attacked the apples,
rendered desperate by thirst. Saddlebank repelled them furiously. He
harangued those who might care to listen.

'You fellows, by George! you shall eat the goose, I tell you. You've
spoilt everything, and I tell you, whether you like it or not, you shall
have apples with it, and sage and onions too. I don't ask for thanks. And
I propose to post outposts in the wood to keep watch.'

He wanted us to draw lots again. His fun had entirely departed from him;
all he thought of was seeing the goose out of the pot. I had a feeling
next to hatred for one who could talk of goose. Temple must have shared
it.

'We 've no real captain now dear old Heriot 's gone,' he said. 'The
school's topsy-turvy: we're like a lot of things rattled in a box. Oh,
dear! how I do like a good commander. On he goes, you after him, never
mind what happens.'

A pair of inseparable friends, Happitt and Larkins, nicknamed
Happy-go-Lucky, were rolling arm-in-arm, declaring they were perfectly
sober, and, for a proof of it, trying to direct their feet upon a lump of
chalk, and marching, and missing it. Up came Chaunter to them: 'Fat
goose?' he said-no more. Both the boys rushed straight as far as they
could go; both sung out, 'I'm done!' and they were.

Temple and I contemplated these proceedings as matters belonging to the
ordinary phenomena of feasting. We agreed that gentlemen were always the
last to drop, and were assured, therefore, of our living out the field;
but I dreaded the moment of the goose's appearance, and I think he did
also. Saddlebank's pertinacity in withholding the cool ginger-beer and
the apples offended us deeply; we should have conspired against him had
we reposed confidence in our legs and our tongues.

Twilight was around us. The tramp-children lay in little bundles in one
tent; another was being built by the women and the girl. Overhead I
counted numbers of stars, all small; and lights in the valley-lights of
palaces to my imagination. Stars and tramps seemed to me to go together.
Houses imprisoned us, I thought a lost father was never to be discovered
by remaining in them. Plunged among dark green leaves, smelling
wood-smoke, at night; at morning waking up, and the world alight, and you
standing high, and marking the hills where you will see the next mor