FORE:In this way he managed to do a few little things to brighten Bessie's grey lifeand his own too, though he did not know it was grey. Every week he put aside a shilling or two towards the lump sum which was at last to make their marriage possible. It was Reuben's fight for Boarzell on an insignificant scalethough Robert, who had not so much iron in him as his father, could not resist spending money from time to time on unnecessary trifles that would give Bessie happiness. For one thing he discovered that she had never been to the Fair. She had never known the delights of riding on the merry-go-round, throwing balls at Aunt Sally, watching the shooting or the panorama. Robert resolved to take her that autumn, and bought her a pair of white cotton gloves in preparation for the day.In the motley crowd, of nearly sixty thousand men, the most conspicuous figure was, perhaps, John Leicester himself, cased in a complete suit of steel armour, (taken as lawful spoil from some castle in the route) waving in the sun a bright Damascus scimitar, while he gave directions, in an authoritative tone, to a peasant who was unloosing the trappings of a large black horse, from which Leicester had just alighted. Standing at a short distance from him, John Oakley, otherwise Jack Straw, formed an adjunct little less important in the picturesque of the scene. Unwilling to incumber himself with armour, his portly person was defended by a leathern jack, covered over with a thick quilting of crimson silk, dagger proof; and in this guise, he contrasted well with the monk clad in dark woollen, with whom he was engaged in conversationalthough turning every now and then, his large blue eyes towards a tempting display of eatables and wine profusely spread under the shade of a tree. A cluster of formidable-looking men in tough leathern jacks, were laying aside their hand-bills and swords and dividing the contents of a large satchel. There was a group variously armed and accoutred, some wearing the shirt of mail with the yew-tree bow in their hands and quivers of arrows at their backs; and others in doublets of leather or freize, with swords, some rusty and some bright, or staves, or sharp-pointed clubs, or reaping hooks, or wood-knives.
