oming off between Jem
Clark and the Dustman?" We were unfamiliar even with the heroes' names.

She found this hard--very hard--to believe. Why, Portsmouth was full of
it, word having come down from London the date was to-morrow, and that
Fareham, or one of the villages near Fareham, the field of battle.
The constabulary, too, had word of it--worse luck--and were on their
mettle to break up the meeting, as the sportsmen of Portsmouth and its
neighbourhood were all on their mettle to attend it. This, explained the
child in her thin clear voice,--I can hear it now discoursing its sad,
its infinitely weary wisdom to us two Johnny Newcomes,--this was the
reason why the fair had closed early. The show-folk were all waiting, so
to speak, for a nod. The tip given, they would all troop out northward,
on each other's heels, greedy for the aftermath of the fight.
Rumour filled the air, and every rumour chased after the movements of the
two principals and their trainers, of whom nothing was known for certain
save that they had left London, and (it was said) had successfully dodged
a line of runners posted for some leagues along the Bath and Portsmouth
roads. For an hour, soon after sunset, the town had been stunned by a
report that Brighton, after all, would be the venue: a second report said
Newbury, or at any rate a point south-west of Reading. Fire drives out
fire: a third report swore positively that Clark and the Dustman were in
Portsmouth, in hiding, and would run the cordon in the small hours of the
morning.

So much--and also that her own name was Meliar-Ann and her mother kept a
sailor's lodging-house--the small creature told us, still trotting by our
side, until we found ourselves walking alongside a low wall over which we
inhaled strong odours of the sea and of longshore sewage, and spied the
riding-lights of the harbour looming through the fog. At the end of this
we came to the high walls of a row of houses, all very quiet and black to
the eye, except that here and there a chink of light showed through a
window-shutter or the sill of a street-door. Throughout that long walk I
had an uncanny sensation as of being led through a town bewitched, hushed,
but wakeful and expectant of something. . . . I can get no nearer to
explaining. We must have passed a score of taverns at least; of that I
have assured myself by many a later exploration of Portsmouth: and in
those days a Portsmouth tavern never closed day or nig