CHAPTER VII.
HE crowd began to pass more thickly, when Amaryllis saw a man coming up the road in the opposite direction to that in which the multitude was moving. They were going to the fair; he had his back to it, and a party in a trap rallied him smartly for his folly.
"What! bean't you a-going to fair? Why, Measter Duck, what's up? Looking for a thunderstorm?"—which young ducks are supposed to enjoy. "Ha! ha! ha!"
Measter Duck, with a broad grin on his face, nevertheless plodded up the hill, and passed beneath Amaryllis.
She knew him very well, for he lived in the hamlet, but she would not have taken any notice of him had he not been so elaborately dressed. His high silk hat shone glossy; his black broadcloth coat was new and carefully brushed; he was in black all over, in contrast with the mass of people who had gone by that morning. A blue necktie, bright and clean, spotless linen, gloves rolled up in a ball in one hand, whiskers brushed, boots shining, teeth clean, Johnny was off to the fair!
The coat fitted him to a nicety; it had, in fact, no chance to do otherwise, for his great back and shoulders stretched it tight, and would have done so had it been made like a sack. Of all the big men who had gone by that day Jack Duck was the biggest; his back was immense, and straight, too, for he walked upright for a farmer, nor was his bulk altogether without effect, for he was not over-burdened with abdomen, so that it showed to the best advantage. He was a little over the average height, but not tall; he had grown laterally.
He could lift two sacks of wheat from the ground. You just try to lift one.
His sleeves were too long, so that only the great knuckles of his speckled hands were visible. Red whiskers, red hair, blue eyes, speckled face, straight lips, thick, like the edge of an earthenware pitcher, and of much the same coarse red hue, always a ready grin, a round, hard head, which you might have hit safely with a mallet; and there is the picture.