that he had curly brown or black hair, and
that there was something peculiar in his look. Just as I was beginning
to recollect myself, the curtain dropped, and I heard, or thought I
heard, a voice say, 'Don't know the cove.' Then there was a rustling
like a person undressing, whereupon being satisfied that it was my fellow
lodger, I dropped asleep, but was awakened again by a kind of heavy
plunge upon the other bed, which caused it to rock and creak, when I
observed that the light had been extinguished, probably blown out, if I
might judge from a rather disagreeable smell of burnt wick which remained
in the room, and which kept me awake till I heard my companion breathing
hard, when, turning on the other side, I was again once more speedily in
the arms of slumber.

CHAPTER XXXVII

HORNCASTLE FAIR

It had been my intention to be up and doing early on the following
morning, but my slumbers proved so profound, that I did not wake until
about eight; on arising, I again found myself the sole occupant of the
apartment, my more alert companion having probably risen at a much
earlier hour. Having dressed myself, I descended, and going to the
stable, found my horse under the hands of my friend the ostler, who was
carefully rubbing him down. 'There ain't a better horse in the fair,'
said he to me, 'and as you are one of us, and appear to be all right,
I'll give you a piece of advice--don't take less than a hundred and fifty
for him; if you mind your hits, you may get it, for I have known two
hundred given in this fair for one no better, if so good.' 'Well,' said
I, 'thank you for your advice, which I will take, and, if successful,
will give you "summut" handsome.' 'Thank you,' said the ostler; 'and now
let me ask whether you are up to all the ways of this here place?' 'I
have never been here before,' said I, 'but I have a pair of tolerably
sharp eyes in my head.' 'That I see you have,' said the ostler, 'but
many a body, with as sharp a pair of eyes as yourn, has lost his horse in
this fair, for want of having been here before. Therefore,' said he,
'I'll give you a caution or two.' Thereupon the ostler proceeded to give
me at least half a dozen cautions, only two of which I shall relate to
the reader: the first, not to stop to listen to what any chance customer
might have to say; and the last--the one on which he appeared to lay most
stress--by no manner of means to permit a Yorkshireman to get up into the
s