were now to see the
cove that refused to sell his horse to my Lord Screw and Whitefeather,
and let Jack Dale have him, I would offer to treat him to a pint of
beer--e'es, I would, verily. Well, measter, you have now seen the
church, and all there's in it worth seeing--so I'll just lock up, and go
and finish digging the grave I was about when you came, after which I
must go into the fair to see how matters are going on. Thank ye,
measter," said he, as I put something into his hand; "thank ye kindly;
'tis not every one who gives me a shilling now-a-days who comes to see
the church, but times are very different from what they were when I was
young; I was not sexton then, but something better; helped Mr. --- with
his horses, and got many a broad crown. Those were the days, measter,
both for men and horses--and I say, measter, if men and horses were so
much better when I was young than they are now, what, I wonder, must they
have been in the time of Oliver and his men?"

CHAPTER XLIV

An Old Acquaintance.

Leaving the church, I strolled through the fair, looking at the horses,
listening to the chaffering of the buyers and sellers, and occasionally
putting in a word of my own, which was not always received with much
deference; suddenly, however, on a whisper arising that I was the young
cove who had brought the wonderful horse to the fair which Jack Dale had
bought for the foreigneering man, I found myself an object of the
greatest attention; those who had before replied with stuff! and
nonsense! to what I said, now listened with the greatest eagerness to any
nonsense I wished to utter, and I did not fail to utter a great deal;
presently, however, becoming disgusted with the beings about me, I forced
my way, not very civilly, through my crowd of admirers; and passing
through an alley and a back street, at last reached an outskirt of the
fair, where no person appeared to know me. Here I stood, looking
vacantly on what was going on, musing on the strange infatuation of my
species, who judge of a person's words, not from their intrinsic merit,
but from the opinion--generally an erroneous one--which they have formed
of the person. From this reverie I was roused by certain words which
sounded near me, uttered in a strange tone, and in a strange cadence--the
words were, "them that finds, wins; and them that can't find, loses."
Turning my eyes in the direction from which the words proceeded, I saw
six or seven peopl