work with the worst possible grace. The thick damp mist hung over
the town like a huge gauze curtain. All was dim and dismal. The
church steeples had bidden a temporary adieu to the world below;
and every object of lesser importance--houses, barns, hedges,
trees, and barges--had all taken the veil.

The church-clock struck one. A cracked trumpet from the front
garden of Mudfog Hall produced a feeble flourish, as if some
asthmatic person had coughed into it accidentally; the gate flew
open, and out came a gentleman, on a moist-sugar coloured charger,
intended to represent a herald, but bearing a much stronger
resemblance to a court-card on horseback. This was one of the
Circus people, who always came down to Mudfog at that time of the
year, and who had been engaged by Nicholas Tulrumble expressly for
the occasion. There was the horse, whisking his tail about,
balancing himself on his hind-legs, and flourishing away with his
fore-feet, in a manner which would have gone to the hearts and
souls of any reasonable crowd. But a Mudfog crowd never was a
reasonable one, and in all probability never will be. Instead of
scattering the very fog with their shouts, as they ought most
indubitably to have done, and were fully intended to do, by
Nicholas Tulrumble, they no sooner recognized the herald, than they
began to growl forth the most unqualified disapprobation at the
bare notion of his riding like any other man. If he had come out
on his head indeed, or jumping through a hoop, or flying through a
red-hot drum, or even standing on one leg with his other foot in
his mouth, they might have had something to say to him; but for a
professional gentleman to sit astride in the saddle, with his feet
in the stirrups, was rather too good a joke. So, the herald was a
decided failure, and the crowd hooted with great energy, as he