To them the
jolting cart was a luxurious carriage, and the ride the most delicious
in the world. Nell had scarcely settled herself in one corner of the
cart when she fell fast asleep, and was only awakened by its stopping
when their ways parted. The driver pointing out the town in the near
distance, directed them to take the path leading through the churchyard.
Accordingly, to this spot they directed their weary steps, and presently
came upon two men who were seated upon the grass. It was not difficult
to divine that they were itinerant showmen--exhibitors of the freaks of
Punch--for, perched cross-legged upon a tombstone behind them, was a
figure of that hero himself, his nose and chin as hooked, and his face
as beaming as usual; while scattered upon the ground, and jumbled
together in a long box, were the other persons of the drama. The hero's
wife and one child, the hobby-horse, the doctor, the foreign gentleman,
the executioner, and the devil, all were here. Their owners had
evidently come to that spot to make some needful repairs in their stock,
for one of them was engaged in binding together a small gallows with
thread, while the other was intent upon fixing a new black wig.
They greeted the strangers with a nod, and the old man sitting down
beside them, and looking at the figures with extreme delight, began to
talk. While they chatted, Mr. Short, a little merry, red-faced man with
twinkling eyes, turning over the figures in the box, drew one forth,
saying ruefully to his companion, Codlin by name: "Look here, here's all
this Judy's clothes falling to pieces again.
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