As his eyes grew more accustomed to the glare of the hissing gas,he saw that in the centre figures were painted standing on the edge of a pillar that revolved without pause.There was a woman with flaming red cheeks,a gold dress and dead white dusty arms,a man with a golden crown and a purple robe,but a broken nose,and a minstrel with a harp.The woman and the king moved stiffly their arms up and down,that they might strike instruments,one a cymbal and the other a drum.But it was finally the horses that caught Jeremy's heart.
Half of them at least were without riders,and the empty ones went round pathetically,envying the more successful ones and dancing to the music as though with an effort.One especially moved Jeremy's sympathy.He was a fine horse,rather fresher than the others,with a coal-black mane and great black bulging eyes;his saddle was of gold and his trappings of red.As he went round he seemed to catch Jeremy's eye and to beg him to come to him.He rode more securely than the rest,rising nobly like a horse of fine breeding,falling again with an implication of restrained force as though he would say:"I have only to let myself go and there,my word,you would see where I'd get to."His bold black eyes turned beseechingly to Jeremy--surely it was not only a trick of the waving gas;the boy drew closer and closer,never moving his gaze from the horses who had hitherto been whirling at a bacchanalian pace,but now,as at some sudden secret command,suddenly slackened,hesitated,fell into a gentle jog-trot,then scarcely rose,scarcely fell,were suddenly still.Jeremy saw what it was that you did if you wanted to ride.Astout dirty man came out amongst the horses and,resting his hands on their backs as though they were less than nothing to him,shouted:"Now's your chance,lidies and gents!Now,lidies and gents!Come along hup!Come along hup!The ride of your life now!A'alfpenny a time!A 'alfpenny a time,and the finest ride of your life!"People began to mount the steps that led on to the platform where the horses stood.A woman,then a man and a boy,then two men,then two girls giggling together,then a man and a girl.
And the stout fellow shouted:"Come along hup!Come along hup!Now,lidies and gents!A 'alfpenny a ride!Come along hup!"Jeremy noticed then that the fine horse with the black mane had stopped close beside him.Impossible to say whether the horse had intended it or no!He was staring now in front of him with the innocent stupid gaze that animals can assume when they do not wish to give themselves away.But Jeremy could see that he was taking it for granted that Jeremy understood the affair."If you're such a fool as not to understand,"he seemed to say,"well,then,I don't want you."Jeremy gazed,and the reproach in those eyes was more than he could endure.And at any moment someone else might settle himself on that beautiful back!There,that stupid fat giggling girl!No--she had moved elsewhere.He could endure it no longer and,with a thumping heart,clutching a scalding penny in a red-hot hand,he mounted the steps."One ride--little gen'elman.'Ere you are!'Old on now!Oh,you wants that one,do yer?Eight yer are--yer pays yer money and yer takes yer choice."He lifted Jeremy up."Put yer arms round 'is neck now--'e won't bite yer!"Bite him indeed!Jeremy felt,as he clutched the cool head and let his hand slide over the stiff black mane,that he knew more about that horse than his owner did.He seemed to feel beneath him the horse's response to his clutching knees,the head seemed to rise for a moment and nod to him and the eyes to say:"It's all right.I'll look after you.I'll give you the best ride of your life!"He felt,indeed,that the gaze of the whole world was upon him,but he responded to it proudly,staring boldly around him as though he had been seated on merry-go-rounds all his days.Perhaps some in the gaping crowd knew him and were saying:"Why,there's the Rev.Cole's kid--"Never mind;he was above scandal.From where he was he could see the Fair lifted up and translated into a fantastic splendour.
Nothing was certain,nothing defined--above him a canopy of evening sky,with circles and chains of stars mixed with the rosy haze of the flame of the Fair;opposite him was the Palace of "The Two-Headed Giant from the Caucasus,"a huge man as portrayed in the picture hanging on his outer walls,a giant naked,save for a bearskin,with one head black and one yellow,and white protruding teeth in both mouths.Next to him was the Fortune Teller's,and outside this a little man with a hump beat a drum.Then there was "The Theatre of Tragedy and Mirth,"with a poster on one side of the door portraying a lady drowning in the swiftest of rivers,but with the prospect of being saved by a stout gentleman who leaned over from the bank and grasped her hair.Then there was the "Chamber of the Fat Lady and the Six Little Dwarfs,"and the entry to this was guarded by a dirty sour-looking female who gnashed her teeth at a hesitating public,before whom,with a splendid indifference to appearance,she consumed,out of a piece of newspaper,her evening meal.
All these things were in Jeremy's immediate vision,and beyond them was a haze that his eyes could not penetrate.It held,he knew,wild beasts,because he could hear quite clearly from time to time the lion and the elephant and the tiger;it held music,because from somewhere through all the noise and confusion the tune of a band penetrated;it held buyers and sellers and treasures and riches,and all the inhabitants of the world--surely all the world must be here to-night.And then,beyond the haze,there were the silent and mysterious gipsy caravans.Dark with their little square windows,and their coloured walls,and their round wheels,and the smell of wood fires,and the noise of hissing kettles and horses cropping the grass,and around them the still night world with the thick woods and the dark river.
