TOM BROWN'S
its own share therein had been forgotten. At the point where the foot-path crossed the brook and road and entered on the field where the feast was held was a long, low, road-side inn, and on the opposite side of the field was a large, white-thatched farm-house where dwelt an old sporting farmer, a great promoter of the revels.
Past the old church and down the foot-path pottered the old man and the child, hand in hand, early on the afternoon of the day before the feast, and wandered all round the ground, which was already being occupied by the "cheap Jacks," with their green-covered carts and marvellous assortment of wares, and the booths of more legitimate small traders with their tempting arrays of fairings and eatables! and penny peep-shows and other shows containing pink-eyed ladies and dwarfs and boa-constrictors and wild Indians. But the object of most interest to Benjy, and, of course, to his pupil also, was the stage of rough planks some four feet high which was being put up by the village carpenter for the back-swording and wrestling; and, after surveying the whole tenderly, old Benjy led his charge away to the road-side inn, where he ordered a glass of ale and a long pipe for himself, and discussed these unwonted luxuries on the bench outside in the soft autumn evening with mine host, another old servant of the Browns, and speculated with him on the likelihood of a good show of old gamesters to contend for the morrow's prizes, and told tales of the gallant bouts of forty years back, to which Tom listened with all his ears and eyes.
But who shall tell the joy of the next morning, when the church-bells were ringing a merry peal, and old Benjy appeared in the servants' hall, resplendent in a long, blue coat and brass buttons, and a pair of old, yellow buckskins and top-boots, which he had cleaned for and inherited from Tom's grandfather, a stout thorn-stick in his hand, and a nosegay of pinks and lavender in his buttonhole, and led away Tom in his best clothes, and two new shillings in his breeches-pockets? Those two, at any rate, look like enjoying the day's revel.
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