Portant tout son bagage,
Ses meubles, sa maison,"

on his own back, why, good luck to them, and many a merry roadside
adventure, and steaming supper in the chimney corners of roadside inns,
Swiss chalets, Hottentot kraals, or wherever else they like to go. So,
having succeeded in contradicting myself in my first chapter (which
gives me great hopes that you will all go on, and think me a good fellow
notwithstanding my crotchets), I shall here shut up for the present,
and consider my ways; having resolved to "sar' it out," as we say in the
Vale, "holus bolus" just as it comes, and then you'll probably get the
truth out of me.



CHAPTER II--THE "VEAST."

"And the King commandeth and forbiddeth, that from
henceforth neither fairs nor markets be kept in Churchyards,
for the honour of the Church."--STATUTES : 13 Edw. I. Stat.
II. cap. vi.

As that venerable and learned poet (whose voluminous works we all think
it the correct thing to admire and talk about, but don't read often)
most truly says, "The child is father to the man;" a fortiori,
therefore, he must be father to the boy. So as we are going at any rate
to see Tom Brown through his boyhood, supposing we never get any farther
(which, if you show a proper sense of the value of this history, there
is no knowing but what we may), let us have a look at the life and
environments of the child in the quiet country village to which we were