"Why am I here?" he asked. "Who sent me? I tell you, men and women, that God sent me. We must not carry our light under a bushel. We must not hide a secret that will turn a million unhappy men and women into a million happy men and women. God gave me this secret, and though I would much sooner be sitting at home in my luxurious surroundings, which have come to me as the result of selling this blessed corrective of all ills of the digestion and alimentary canals, yet--no--this world is no place for idleness and laziness. So I am here with my pills, and I shall do my Master's work so long as I have hands to make the medicine and a voice to proclaim it. And in Christ's own blessed words I can say that where two or three just persons are gathered together, there am I in the midst of them, my friends--there am I in the midst of them!" Amid the welter of earth-colour, dun and grey there flashed yellow or scarlet, where certain Italian women moved in the crowd. They sold trinkets, or offered to tell fortunes with the aid of little green parakeets in cages. The blare and grunt of coarse melody persisted; and the people at the booths babbled ceaselessly where they sold their sweetmeats, cakes, and fruit. Some were anchored under little awnings; some moved their goods about on wheels with flags fluttering to attract attention. Old and young perambulated the maze. Every manner of man was gathered here. Aged and middle-aged, youthful and young, grey and white, black and brown, bearded and shorn, all came and went together. Some passed suspicious and moody; some stood garrulous, genial, sanguine, according to their fortunes or fancied fortunes in the matter of sale and barter. And later in the day, by the various roads that stretch north, south, and west from Princetown, droves of ponies began to wend, some with cheerful new masters; many with gloomy owners, who had nothing to show but their trouble for their pains. This spacious scene was hemmed in by a rim of sad-coloured waste and ragged hills, while overhead the grey-ribbed sky hung low and shredded mist. Humphrey Baskerville had sold his ponies in an hour, and was preparing to make a swift departure when accident threw him into the heart of a disturbance and opened the way to significant incidents. The old man met Jack Head and was speaking with him, but suddenly Jack caught the other by his shoulders and pulled him aside just in time to escape being knocked over. A dozen over-driven bullocks hurtled past them with sweating flanks and dripping mouths. Behind came two drovers, and a brace of barking dogs hung upon the flanks of the weary and frightened cattle. Suddenly, as the people parted, a big brute, dazed and maddened by the yelping dogs now at his throat, now at his heels, turned and dashed into the open gate of a cottage by the way.