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gave them over to the ostler, and led us upstairs to a window which overlooked the gathering. The Market Strand at Falmouth is an open oblong space, not very wide, leading off the main street to the water's edge, and terminating in steps where as a rule the watermen wait to take off passengers to the Packets. A lamp-post stands in the middle of it, and by the base of this the preachers--a grey-headed man and two women in ugly bonnets-- were already assembled, with but a foot or two dividing them from the crowd. Close behind the lamp-post stood a knot of men conversing together one of whom stepped forward for a word with the grey-headed preacher. He wore a rose in his hat, and at sight of him my heart gave a wild incredulous leap. It was Nat Fiennes! I pushed past my father and flung the open window still wider. The grey-haired preacher had opened the Bible in his hand and was climbing the stone base of the lamp-post when a handful of filth struck the back of the book and bespattered his face. I saw Nat whip out his sword and swing about angrily in the direction of the shot, while the two women laid hands on either arm to check him; and at the same moment my father spoke up sharply in my ear. "Tumble out, lad," he commanded. "We are in bare time." I vaulted over the window-ledge and dropped into the street; my father after me, and Mr. Fett and Billy close behind. Indeed, that first shot had but given the signal for a general engagement; and as we picked ourselves up and thrust our way into the crowd, a whole volley of filth bespattered the group of Methodists. In particular I noted the man with whom Nat Fiennes, a minute since, had been conversing--a little bald-headed fellow of about fifty-five or sixty, in a suit of black which, even at thirty paces distant, showed rusty in the sunshine. An egg had broken against his forehead, and the yellow of it trickled down over his eyes; yet he stood, hat in hand, neither yielding pace nor offering to resist. Nat, less patient, had made a rush upon the crowd, which had closed around and swallowed him from sight. By its violent swaying he was giving it something to digest. One of the two women shrank terrified by the base of the lamp-post. The other--a virago to look at, with eyes that glared from under the pent of her black bonnet--had pulled the grey-headed preacher down by his coat-tails, and, mounting in his room, clung with an arm around the lamp-post and
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