Harry made good progress, and Reuben decided that he was to start his career at the October Fair. There had been a fiddler at the Fair for years, partly for the lasses and lads to dance to, partly for the less Bacchic entertainments of their elders. It was at the Fair that men took his measure, and engaged him accordingly for weddings and such festivals. Luck would have it that[Pg 58] for the last two years there had been no official fiddlerold Abel Pinch having been seduced by a semi-urban show, which wandered round London, camping on waste grounds and commons. The musical element had been supplied by strays, and Reuben had no doubt but that he should now be able to instal his brother honourably as chief musician.
The next morning the monk was summoned before the abbot; and with the same calm and dignified demeanor that generally characterized him, he obeyed the summons. The two brethren who had conducted him from Gray's cottage, stood at the table, and the abbot proceeded to say, that upon the oath of a respectable witness, he had been observed conversing with an excommunicated woman, and accompanying her to her house, and that those two brethren (pointing to the officers) were ready to avow they had beheld him leave it. "Now," continued Sudbury, "what have you to say? Did you converse with the woman?"
TWO:"That's righthave the courage of your earthiness. But don't try to make me think that when you look out[Pg 218] of the window at Boarzell, you don't see the sky beyond it."
TWO:The galleyman then hurried Holgrave up a narrow dark street, where, tapping gently at a door, it was instantly opened, to Stephen's great surprise, by old Hartwell.
THREE:It was David who drew William's attention to the woman sitting at the other end of their seat. David piqued himself on his knowledge of the world.
