I noticed one among
them who could make a wheel of himself like a London boy, and
seemingly enjoyed a grave pre-eminence upon the strength of the
accomplishment. By and by, however, the trumpets began to weary me,
and I went indoors, leaving the fair, I fancy, at its height.
Night had fallen before I ventured forth again. It was pitch-dark in
the village street, and the darkness seemed only the greater for a
light here and there in an uncurtained window or from an open door.
Into one such window I was rude enough to peep, and saw within a
charming GENRE picture. In a room, all white wainscot and crimson
wall-paper, a perfect gem of colour after the black, empty darkness
in which I had been groping, a pretty girl was telling a story, as
well as I could make out, to an attentive child upon her knee, while
an old woman sat placidly dozing over the fire. You may be sure I
was not behindhand with a story for myself - a good old story after
the manner of G. P. R. James and the village melodramas, with a
wicked squire, and poachers, and an attorney, and a virtuous young
man with a genius for mechanics, who should love, and protect, and
ultimately marry the girl in the crimson room.
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