the slope, and
followed the path he had followed before.

The light had gone, the rising dust had disappeared--he hoped for ever.
He marched resolutely along, and found nothing to alarm him till, coming
within a few yards of the sandpit, he heard a slight noise in front,
which led him to halt. The halt was but momentary, for the noise
resolved itself into the steady bites of two animals grazing.

"Two he'th-croppers down here," he said aloud. "I have never known 'em
come down so far afore."

The animals were in the direct line of his path, but that the child
thought little of; he had played round the fetlocks of horses from his
infancy. On coming nearer, however, the boy was somewhat surprised to
find that the little creatures did not run off, and that each wore a
clog, to prevent his going astray; this signified that they had been
broken in. He could now see the interior of the pit, which, being in
the side of the hill, had a level entrance. In the innermost corner the
square outline of a van appeared, with its back towards him. A light
came from the interior, and threw a moving shadow upon the vertical face
of gravel at the further side of the pit into which the vehicle faced.

The child assumed that this was the cart of a gipsy, and his dread of
those wanderers reached but to that mild pitch which titillates rather
than pains. Only a few inches of mud wall kept him and his family from
being gipsies themselves. He skirted the gravel pit at a respectful
distance, ascended the slope, and came forward upon the brow, in order
to look into the open door of the van and see the original of the
shadow.

The picture alarmed the boy. By a little stove inside the van sat a
figure red from head to heels--the man who had been Thomasin's friend.
He was darning a stocking, which was red like the rest of him. Moreover,
as he darned he smoked a pipe, the stem and bowl of which were red also.

At this moment one of the heath-croppers feeding in the outer shadows
was audibly shaking off the clog attached to its foot. Aroused by the
sound, the reddleman laid down his stocking, lit a lantern which hung
beside him, and came out from the van. In sticking up the candle he
lifted the lantern to his face, and the light shone into the whites
of his eyes and upon his ivory teeth, which, in contrast with the
red surrounding, lent him a startling aspect enough to the gaze of a
juvenile. The boy knew too well for his peace of mind upon whose