ir palms. The foreign and exotic colour that the circus and
the gipsies brought into the village was exactly suited to the St.
Dreot blood. Many centuries ago strange galleys had forced their way
into bays and creeks of the southern coast, and soon dark strangers had
penetrated across the moors and fields and had mingled with the natives
of the plain. Scarcely an inhabitant of St. Dreot but had some dark
colour in his blood, a gift from those Phoenician adventurers; scarcely
an inhabitant but was conscious from time to time of other strains,
more tumultuous passions, than the Saxon race could show.

This coming of the circus had in it, whether they knew it or no,
something of the welcoming of their own people back to them again. They
liked to see the elephant and the camel tread solemnly the uneven
stones of the village street, they liked to hear the roar of the wild
beasts at night when they were safe and warm in their own comfortable
beds, they liked to have solemn consultations with the gipsy girls as
to their mysterious destinies. The animals, indeed, were not many nor,
poor things, were they, after many years' chains and discipline, very
fierce--nevertheless they roared because they knew it was their duty so
to do, and when the lion's turn came a notice was hung up outside his
cage saying: "This is the Lion that last year, at Clinton, bit Miss
Harper." There were also performing dogs, a bear, and two seals.

The circus was quite close to the farm.

"I do hope," said Mrs. Bolitho to Martin, "that the roaring of the
animals won't disturb you."

It did not disturb him. He seemed to like it, and went out and stood
there watching all the labours of the gipsies and the tent men, and
even went into "The Green Boar" and drank a glass of beer with Mr.
Marquis, the proprietor of the circus.

On the third day after their arrival there was a proper Glebeshire
mist. It was a day, also, of freezing, biting cold, such a day as
sometimes comes in of a Glebeshire May--cold that seems, in its damp
penetration, more piercing than any frost.

The mist came rolling up over the moor in wreaths and spirals of
shadowy grey, sometimes shot with a queer dull light as though the sun
was fighting behind it to beat a way through, sometimes so dense and
thick that standing at the door of the farm you could not see your hand
in front of your face. It was cold with the chill of the sea foam,
mysterious in its ever-changing intricacies of sh