Chapter 2

The morning sun was streaming through the crevices of the
canvas when the man awoke. A warm glow pervaded the whole
atmosphere of the marquee, and a single big blue fly buzzed
musically round and round it. Besides the buzz of the fly
there was not a sound. He looked about--at the benches--at
the table supported by trestles--at his basket of tools--at
the stove where the furmity had been boiled--at the empty
basins--at some shed grains of wheat--at the corks which
dotted the grassy floor. Among the odds and ends he
discerned a little shining object, and picked it up. It was
his wife's ring.

A confused picture of the events of the previous evening
seemed to come back to him, and he thrust his hand into his
breast-pocket. A rustling revealed the sailor's bank-notes
thrust carelessly in.

This second verification of his dim memories was enough; he
knew now 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