he church, the garden-walls, sharp and
black; the street, dim and precipitous, tumbling forward into the
blue, whence lights, one, two, three, now a little bunch together, came
pricking out.

The old woman opened the door when he rang Mr. Somerset's bell.

"Master's been called away," she said in her croaking voice. "A burial.
'E 'adn't time to let you know. 'Tell the little gen'l'man,' 'e said,
'I'm sorry.'"

"All right," said Jeremy; "thank you."

He descended the steps, then stood where he was, in the street, looking
up and down. Who could deny that it was all being arranged for him? He
felt more than ever like God as he looked proudly about him. Everything
served his purpose.

The jingling of the money in his pocket reminded him that he must waste
no more time. He started off.

Even his progress through the town seemed wonderful, quite unattended
at last, as he had always all his life longed to be. So soon as he left
Orange Street and entered the market he was caught into a great crowd.
It was all stirring and humming with a noise such as the bonfire had
all day been making. It was his first introduction to the world--he had
never been in a large crowd before--and it is not to be denied but that
his heart beat thick and his knees trembled a little. But he pulled
himself together. Who was he to be afraid? But the books under his arm
were a nuisance. He suddenly dropped them in amongst the legs and boots
of the people.

There were many interesting sights to be seen in the market-place,
but he could not stay, and he found himself soon, to his own surprise,
slipping through the people as quietly and easily as though he had done
it all his days, only always he kept his hand on his money lest that
should be stolen and his adventure suddenly come to nothing.

He knew his way very well, and soon he was at the end of Finch Street
which in those days opened straight into fields and hedges.

Even now, so little has Polchester grown in thirty years, the fields and
hedges are not very far away. Here there was a stile with a large
wooden fence on either side of it, and a red-faced man saying: "Pay your
sixpences now! Come along... pay your sixpences now." Crowds of people
were passing through the stile, jostling one another, pressing and
pushing, but all apparently in good temper, for there was a great deal
of laughter and merriment. From the other side of the fence came a
torrent of sound, so discordant and so tumultu