THREE:While Turner was thus declaiming, a singular looking being, who sat directly opposite to him, had risen, and, evidently quite unmoved by the vehemence of the smith's manner, and equally regardless of the matter of his speech, only awaited until a pause should enable him to commence his own. The man was about five feet two in height, with thick lips and a short turned-up nose, black, bushy brows, overhanging a pair of twinkling grey eyes, and a bald head, receding abruptly from the eyebrows, like those of the lower animals. The moment Turner ceased speaking, the man began, in a deep guttural voice
De Boteler looked at Edith an instant with a frown, as if about to answer fiercely; but after a moment he inquired calmly,"Do not disturb yourself," said the father, in a soothing tone; and, as the wretched wife left the room, he prepared himself to listen to the dark catalogue of long-growing crime. Father John exhorted and encouraged, and with all the fervour of his soul joined the dying man's prayer for mercy. It seemed as if the spirit had lingered for the parting consolations of religion; for scarcely were the last prayers said, ere a slight tremor was perceptible through the whole frame; the eyes fixed, the jaw fell, and the soul went forth to judgment.Naomi always took advantage of these returns to docility, but later that evening in the dairy, she suddenly swung round on Mrs. Backfield and exclaimed petulently:The gipsies always camped on the flanks of the Fair, which they looked on with greater detachment than the gaujos who crowded into its heart, either selling or buying, doing or being done. Just within the semicircle of their earth-coloured tents were the caravans of the showmen, gaudily painted, with seedy horses at tether, very different from the Romany gris. Then came the booths, stalls piled with sweets in an interesting state of preservation, trays of neck and shoulder ribbons, tinsel cords, tin lockets with glass stones, all fairings, to be bought out of the hard-won wages of husbandry in love. Then there was the panorama, creaking and torn in places, but still giving a realistic picture of the crowning of King William; there was the merry-go-round, trundled noisily by two sweating cart-horses; there was the cocoa-nut shy, and the fighting booth, in the doorway of which half-breed Buck Washington loved to stand and display his hairy chest between the folds of his dressing-gown; and there was the shooting-gallery, where one could pot at the cardboard effigies of one's hates, Lord Brougham who had robbed the poor working man of his parish relief, or Boney, still a blood-curdler to those who had seen the building of the Martello towers."Oh, f?ather, d?an't be so hard!"
