they were not dreams. He remained seated, looking on the ground for some
time. "I must get out of this as soon as I can," he said deliberately
at last, with the air of one who could not catch his thoughts without
pronouncing them. "She's gone--to be sure she is--gone with that sailor
who bought her, and little Elizabeth-Jane. We walked here, and I had the
furmity, and rum in it--and sold her. Yes, that's what's happened and
here am I. Now, what am I to do--am I sober enough to walk, I wonder?"
He stood up, found that he was in fairly good condition for progress,
unencumbered. Next he shouldered his tool basket, and found he could
carry it. Then lifting the tent door he emerged into the open air.

Here the man looked around with gloomy curiosity. The freshness of the
September morning inspired and braced him as he stood. He and his family
had been weary when they arrived the night before, and they had observed
but little of the place; so that he now beheld it as a new thing. It
exhibited itself as the top of an open down, bounded on one extreme by
a plantation, and approached by a winding road. At the bottom stood the
village which lent its name to the upland and the annual fair that was
held thereon. The spot stretched downward into valleys, and onward to
other uplands, dotted with barrows, and trenched with the remains of
prehistoric forts. The whole scene lay under the rays of a newly risen
sun, which had not as yet dried a single blade of the heavily dewed
grass, whereon the shadows of the yellow and red vans were projected far
away, those thrown by the felloe of each wheel being elongated in shape
to the orbit of a comet. All the gipsies and showmen who had remained
on the ground lay snug within their carts and tents or wrapped in
horse-cloths under them, and were silent and still as death, with the
exception of an occasional snore that revealed their presence. But
the Seven Sleepers had a dog; and dogs of the mysterious breeds that
vagrants own, that are as much like cats as dogs and as much like foxes
as cats also lay about here. A little one started up under one of the
carts, barked as a matter of principle, and quickly lay down again.
He was the only positive spectator of the hay-trusser's exit from the
Weydon Fair-field.

This seemed to accord with his desire. He went on in silent thought,
unheeding the yellowhammers which flitted about the hedges with straws
in their bills, the crowns of the mushrooms, and the