a better ear than the rest, found himself
under compulsion at intervals to go round the corner and howl. Yet, even
he returned to the public-house on each occasion with the tenacity of a
confirmed drunkard.

Fearful to relate, there was even a sort of little Fair in the village.
Some despairing gingerbread that had been vainly trying to dispose of
itself all over the country, and had cast a quantity of dust upon its
head in its mortification, again appealed to the public from an infirm
booth. So did a heap of nuts, long, long exiled from Barcelona, and yet
speaking English so indifferently as to call fourteen of themselves
a pint. A Peep-show which had originally started with the Battle of
Waterloo, and had since made it every other battle of later date
by altering the Duke of Wellington's nose, tempted the student of
illustrated history. A Fat Lady, perhaps in part sustained upon
postponed pork, her professional associate being a Learned Pig,
displayed her life-size picture in a low dress as she appeared when
presented at Court, several yards round. All this was a vicious
spectacle as any poor idea of amusement on the part of the rougher
hewers of wood and drawers of water in this land of England ever is and
shall be. They MUST NOT vary the rheumatism with amusement. They may
vary it with fever and ague, or with as many rheumatic variations as
they have joints; but positively not with entertainment after their own
manner.

The various sounds arising from this scene of depravity, and floating
away into the still evening air, made the evening, at any point which
they just reached fitfully, mellowed by the distance, more still by
contrast. Such was the stillness of the evening to Eugene Wrayburn, as
he walked by the river with his hands behind him.

He walked slowly, and with the measured step and preoccupied air of one
who was waiting. He walked between the two points, an osier-bed at this
end and some floating lilies at that, and at each point stopped and
looked expectantly in one direction.

'It is very quiet,' said he.

It was very quiet. Some sheep were grazing on the grass by the
river-side, and it seemed to him that he had never before heard the
crisp tearing sound with which they cropped it. He stopped idly, and
looked at them.

'You are stupid enough, I suppose. But if you are clever enough to get
through life tolerably to your satisfaction, you have got the better of
me, Man as I am, and Mutton as you a