prefacing the assault on Stamford. The conjurer,
meanwhile, sat demurely in a corner extracting a sly enjoyment from
the whole scene, and, like the facetious Merry Andrew, directing his
queer glance particularly at me. As for myself, with great
exhilaration of fancy, I began to arrange and color the incidents of a
tale wherewith I proposed to amuse an audience that very evening; for
I saw that my associates were a little ashamed of me, and that no time
was to be lost in obtaining a public acknowledgment of my abilities.

"Come, fellow-laborers," at last said the old showman, whom we had
elected president; "the shower is over, and we must be doing our duty
by these poor souls at Stamford."

"We'll come among them in procession, with music and dancing," cried
the merry damsel.

Accordingly--for it must be understood that our pilgrimage was to be
performed on foot--we sallied joyously out of the wagon, each of us,
even the old gentleman in his white top-boots, giving a great skip as
we came down the ladder. Above our heads there was such a glory of
sunshine and splendor of clouds, and such brightness of verdure below,
that, as I modestly remarked at the time, Nature seemed to have washed
her face and put on the best of her jewelry and a fresh green gown in
honor of our confederation. Casting our eyes northward, we beheld a
horseman approaching leisurely and splashing through the little puddle
on the Stamford road. Onward he came, sticking up in his saddle with
rigid perpendicularity, a tall, thin figure in rusty black, whom the
showman and the conjurer shortly recognized to be what his aspect
sufficiently indicated--a travelling preacher of great fame among the
Methodists. What puzzled us was the fact that his face appeared turned
from, instead of to, the camp-meeting at Stamford. However, as this
new votary of the wandering life drew near the little green space
where the guide-post and our wagon were situated, my six
fellow-vagabonds and myself rushed forward and surrounded him, crying
out with united voices, "What news? What news from the camp-meeting at
Stamford?"

The missionary looked down in surprise at as singular a knot of people
as could have been selected from all his heterogeneous auditors.
Indeed, considering that we might all be classified under the general
head of Vagabond, there was great diversity of character among the
grave old showman, the sly, prophetic beggar, the fiddling foreigner
and his merry