Temple and I contemplated these proceedings as matters belonging to the ordinary phenomena of feasting. We agreed that gentlemen were always the last to drop, and were assured, therefore, of our living out the field; but I dreaded the moment of the goose's appearance, and I think he did also. Saddlebank's pertinacity in withholding the cool ginger-beer and the apples offended us deeply; we should have conspired against him had we reposed confidence in our legs and our tongues. Twilight was around us. The tramp-children lay in little bundles in one tent; another was being built by the women and the girl. Overhead I counted numbers of stars, all small; and lights in the valley-lights of palaces to my imagination. Stars and tramps seemed to me to go together. Houses imprisoned us, I thought a lost father was never to be discovered by remaining in them. Plunged among dark green leaves, smelling wood- smoke, at night; at morning waking up, and the world alight, and you standing high, and marking the hills where you will see the next morning and the next, morning after morning, and one morning the dearest person in the world surprising you just before you wake: I thought this a heavenly pleasure. But, observing the narrowness of the tents, it struck me there would be snoring companions. I felt so intensely sensitive, that the very idea of a snore gave me tremours and qualms: it was associated with the sense of fat. Saddlebank had the lid of the pot in his hand; we smelt the goose, and he cried, 'Now for supper; now for it! Halloa, you fellows!' 'Bother it, Saddlebank, you'll make Catman hear you,' said Temple, wiping his forehead. I perspired coldly. 'Catman! He's been at it for the last hour and a half,' Saddlebank replied. One boy ran up: he was ready, and the only one who was. Presently Chaunter rushed by. 'Barnshed 's in custody; I'm away home,' he said, passing. We stared at the black opening of the dell. 'Oh, it's Catman; we don't mind him,' Saddlebank reassured us; but we heard ominous voices, and perceived people standing over a prostrate figure. Then we heard a voice too well known to us. It said, 'The explanation of a pupil in your charge, Mr. Catman, being sent barefaced into the town--a scholar of mine-for sage and onions . . .' 'Old Rippenger!' breathed Temple. We sat paralyzed. Now we understood the folly of despatching a donkey like Barnshed for sage and onions. 'Oh, what asses we have been!' Temple continued. 'Come along-we run for it! Come along, Richie! They 're picking up the fellows like windfalls.' I told him I would not run for it; in fact, I distrusted my legs; and he was staggering, answering Saddlebank's reproaches for having come among tramps. 'Temple, I see you, sir!' called Mr. Rippenger. Poor Temple had advanced into the firelight.