a trooper of Oliver." "You would, measter,
would you? Well, I never quarrels with the opinions of people who come
to look at the church, and certainly independence is a fine thing. I
like to see a chap of an independent spirit, and if I were now to see the
cove who 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
gives me a shilling nowadays 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 which I chose 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