by
Jove!" Some of them, though young, were clad antiquely enough in
breeches and gaiters--not sportsmen's breeches and gaiters, but
old-fashioned "granfer" things; the most of them were stout and sturdy,
in drab and brown suits of good cloth, cut awry. Hundreds of them on
foot, in traps, gigs, fourwheels, and on horseback, went under
Amaryllis: but, though they were all Christians, there was not one
"worth a Jewess' eye."

She scorned them all.

This member of the unknown race was too thickly made, short set, and
squat; this one too fair--quite white and moist-sugar looking; this one
had a straight leg.

Another went by with a great thick and long black beard--what a horrid
thing, now, when kissing!--and as he walked he wiped it with his sleeve,
for he had just washed down the dust with a glass of ale. His neck, too,
was red and thick; hideous, yet he was a "stout knave," and a man all
over, as far as body makes a man.

But women are, like Shakespeare, better judges. "Care I for the thews
and sinews of a man?" They look for something more than bulk.

A good many of these fellows were more or less lame, for it is
astonishing if you watch people go by and keep account of them what a
number have game legs, both young and old.

A young buck on a capital horse was at the first glance more
interesting--paler, rakish, a cigar in his mouth, an air of viciousness
and dash combined, fairly well dressed, pale whiskers and beard; in
short, he knew as much of the billiard-table as he did of sheep and
corn. When nearer Amaryllis disliked him more than all the rest put
together; she shrank back a little from the wall lest he should chance
to look up; she would have feared to have been alone with such a
character, and yet she could not have said why. She would not have
feared to walk side by side with the great black beard--hideous as he
was--nor with any of the rest, not even with the roughest of the
labourers who tramped along. This gentleman alone alarmed her.

There were two wenches, out for their Fair Day holiday, coming by at the
same time; they had on their best dresses and hats, and looked fresh and
nice. They turned round to watch him coming, and half waited for him;
when he came up he checked his horse, and began to "cheek" them. Nothing
loth, the village girls "cheeked" him, and so they passed on.

One or two very long men appeared, unusually clumsy, even in walking
they did not know exactly what to do with their