ildren, fifty years had passed away since young Sam Johnson had
shown himself so hard-hearted towards his father. It was now market-day in
the village of Uttoxeter.

In the street of the village, you might see cattle-dealers with cows and
oxen for sale, and pig-drovers, with herds of squeaking swine, and
farmers, with cart-loads of cabbages, turnips, onions, and all other
produce of the soil. Now and then a farmer's red-faced wife trotted along
on horseback, with butter and cheese in two large panniers. The people of
the village, with country squires and other visitors from the
neighborhood, walked hither and thither, trading, jesting, quarrelling,
and making just such a bustle as their fathers and grandfathers had made
half a century before.

In one part of the street, there was a puppet-show, with a ridiculous
Merry-Andrew, who kept both grown people and children in a roar of
laughter. On the opposite side was the old stone church of Uttoxeter, with
ivy climbing up its walls, and partly obscuring its Gothic windows.

There was a clock in the gray tower of the ancient church; and the hands
on the dial-plate had now almost reached the hour of noon. At this busiest
hour of the market, a strange old gentleman was seen making his way among
the crowd. He was very tall and bulky, and wore a brown coat and small
clothes, with black worsted stockings and buckled shoes. On his head was a
three-cornered hat, beneath which a bushy gray wig thrust itself out, all
in disorder. The old gentleman elbowed the people aside, and forced his
way through the midst of them with a singular kind of gait, rolling his
body hither and thither, so that he needed twice as much room as any other
person there.

"Make way, sir!" he would cry out, in a loud, harsh voice, when somebody
happened to interrupt his progress.--"Sir, you intrude your person into the
public thoroughfare!"

"What a queer old fellow this is!" muttered the people among themselves,
hardly knowing whether to laugh or to be angry.

But, when they looked into the venerable stranger's face, not the most
thoughtless among them dared to offer him the least impertinence. Though
his features were scarred and distorted with the scrofula, and though his
eyes were dim and bleared, yet there was something of authority and wisdom
in his look, which impressed them all with awe. So they stood aside to let
him pass; and the old gentleman made his way across the market-place, and
paused nea