something else; sung scurvy songs about Oliver to the tune of Barney Banks, and pelted his men, wherever they found them, with stones and dirt.”  “The more ungrateful scoundrels they,” said I.  “Oliver and his men fought the battle of English independence against a wretched king and corrupt lords.  Had I been living at the time, I should have been proud to be a trooper of Oliver.”  “You would, measter, would you?  Well, I never quarrels with the opinions of people who come to look at the church, and certainly independence is a fine thing.  I like to see a chap of an independent spirit, and if I were now to see the cove that refused to sell his horse to my Lord Screw and Whitefeather, and let Jack Dale have him, I would offer to treat him to a pint of beer—­e’es, I would, verily.  Well, measter, you have now seen the church, and all there’s in it worth seeing—­so I’ll just lock up, and go and finish digging the grave I was about when you came, after which I must go into the fair to see how matters are going on.  Thank ye, measter,” said he, as I put something into his hand; “thank ye kindly; ’tis not every one who gives me a shilling now-a-days who comes to see the church, but times are very different from what they were when I was young; I was not sexton then, but something better; helped Mr.—­with his horses, and got many a broad crown.  Those were the days, measter, both for men and horses—­and I say, measter, if men and horses were so much better when I was young than they are now, what, I wonder, must they have been in the time of Oliver and his men?”

CHAPTER XLIV

An Old Acquaintance.

Leaving the church, I strolled through the fair, looking at the horses, listening to the chaffering of the buyers and sellers, and occasionally putting in a word of my own, which was not always received with much deference; suddenly, however, on a whisper arising that I was the young cove who had brought the wonderful horse to the fair which Jack Dale had bought for the foreigneering man, I found myself an object of the greatest attention; those who had before replied with stuff! and nonsense! to what I said, now listened with the greatest eagerness to any nonsense I wished to utter, and I did not fail to utter a great deal; presently, however, becoming disgusted with the beings about me, I forced my way, not very civilly, through my crowd of admirers; and passing through an alley and a back street, at last reached an outskirt of the fair, where no person appeared to know me.  Here I stood, looking vacantly on what was going on, musing on the strange infatuation of my species, who judge of a person’s words, not from their intrinsic merit, but from the opinion—­generally an erroneous one—­which they have formed of the person.  From this reverie I was roused by certain words which sounded near me, uttered in a strange tone, and in a strange cadence—­the words were, “them that finds, wins; and them