They had stopped to rest beneath a finger-post where four roads met, and Mr. Codlin in his deep misanthropy had let down the drapery and seated himself in the bottom of the show, invisible to mortal eyes and disdainful of the company of his fellow-creatures, when two monstrous shadows were seen stalking towards them from a turning in the road by which they had come. The child was at first quite terrified by the sight of these gaunt giants—for such they looked as they advanced with lofty strides beneath the shadow of the trees—but Short, telling her there was nothing to fear, blew a blast upon the trumpet, which was answered by a cheerful shout.
“It’s Grinder’s lot, an’t it?” cried Mr. Short in a loud key.
“Yes,” replied a couple of shrill voices.
“Come on then,” said Short. “Let’s have a look at you. I thought it was you.”
Thus invited, “Grinder’s lot” approached with redoubled speed and soon came up with the little party. Mr. Grinder’s company, familiarly termed a lot, consisted of a young gentleman and a young lady on stilts, and Mr. Grinder himself, who used his natural legs for pedestrian purposes and carried at his back a drum. The public costume of the young people was of the Highland kind, but the night being damp and cold, the young gentleman wore over his kilt a man’s pea jacket reaching to his ankles, and a glazed hat; the young lady too was muffled in an old cloth pelisse and had a handkerchief tied about her head. Their Scotch bonnets, ornamented with plumes of jet black feathers, Mr. Grinder carried on his instrument.
“Bound for the races, I see,” said Mr. Grinder coming up out of breath. “So are we. How are you, Short?” With that they shook hands in a very friendly manner. The young people being too high up for the ordinary salutations, saluted Short after their own fashion. The young gentleman twisted up his right stilt and patted him on the shoulder, and the young lady rattled her tambourine.
“Practice?” said Short, pointing to the stilts.
“No,” returned Grinder. “It comes either to walkin’ in ’em or carryin’ of ’em, and they like walkin’ in ’em best. It’s wery pleasant for the prospects. Which road are you takin’? We go the nighest.”
“Why, the fact is,” said Short, “that we were going the longest way, because then we could stop for the night, a mile and a half on. But three or four mile gained tonight is so many saved tomorrow, and if you keep on, I think our best way is to do the same.”
“Where’s your partner?” inquired Grinder.
“Here he is,” cried Mr. Thomas Codlin, presenting his head and face in the proscenium of the stage, and exhibiting an expression of countenance not often seen there; “and he’ll see his partner boiled alive before he’ll go on tonight. That’s what he says.”
“Well, don’t say such things as them, in a spear which is dewoted to something pleasanter,” urged Short. “Respect associations Tommy, even if you do cut up rough.”
“Rough or smooth,” said Mr. Codlin, beating his hand on the little footboard, where Punch, when suddenly struck with the symmetry of his legs and their capacity for silk stockings, is accustomed to exhibit them to popular admiration, “rough or smooth, I won’t go further than the mile and a half tonight. I put up at the Jolly Sandboys and nowhere else. If you like to come there, come there. If you like to go on by yourself, go on by yourself, and do without me if you can.”
So saying, Mr. Codlin disappeared from the scene and immediately presenting himself outside the theatre, took it on his shoulders at a jerk, and made off with most remarkable agility.
Any further controversy being now out of the question, Short was fain to part with Mr. Grinder and his pupils and to follow his morose companion. After lingering at the finger-post for a few minutes to see the stilts frisking away in the moonlight and the bearer of the drum toiling slowly after them, he blew a few notes upon the trumpet as a parting salute, and hastened with all speed to follow Mr. Codlin. With this view he gave his unoccupied hand to Nell, and bidding her be of good cheer as they would soon be at the end of their journey for that night, and stimulating the old man with a similar assurance, led them at a pretty swift pace towards their destination, which he was the less unwilling to make for, as the moon was now overcast and the clouds were threatening rain.
XVIII
The Jolly Sandboys was a small roadside inn of pretty ancient date, with a sign, representing three Sandboys increasing their jollity with as many jugs of ale and bags of gold, creaking and swinging on its post on the opposite side of the road. As the travellers had observed that day many indications of their drawing nearer and nearer to the race town, such as gipsy camps, carts laden with gambling booths and their appurtenances, itinerant showmen of various kinds, and beggars and trampers of every degree, all wending their way in the same direction, Mr. Codlin was fearful of finding the accommodations forestalled; this fear increasing as he diminished the distance between himself and the hostelry, he quickened his pace, and notwithstanding the burden he had to carry, maintained a round trot until he reached the threshold. Here he had the gratification of finding that his fears were without foundation, for the landlord was leaning against the doorpost looking lazily at the rain, which had by this time begun to descend heavily, and no tinkling of cracked bell, nor boisterous
