Chapter Ten.
Jack encounters Master Pearson, and goes to Norwich.
“Vanity Fair! Vanity Fair all over!” exclaimed Brinsmead to Jack, as they worked their way amidst the gaily-clad talking, higgling, laughing, shouting throng. “It’s many a day since I came to this part of the meadow. It becometh me more to keep to the Duddery, where staple wares are to be found, than to be wandering about in this fool’s paradise; but I wished you, my young friend, to see what is to be seen, that I may point out its folly, and that you might not be fancying you had missed some great delight. See yonder shouting fool, with bells and cap and painted face, grimacing away to the gaping crowd, who think him the merriest fellow they have ever set eyes on. Look into the poor wretch’s heart, and, take my word for it, it’s well-nigh breaking. Maybe he has a sickly wife and ten small children at home, who will starve if he ceases to grimace: so grimace he must to the end of the chapter. But who is this? An old friend, I verily believe!”
“Yea, and a trusty one, friend Brinsmead,” said a person who at that moment confronted Will, and took him cordially by the hand. “But what can have brought you into this hurly-burly of folly and wickedness?”
“And what has brought you into the midst of the same hurly-burly, Job Hodgkinson?” asked Will.
“I desired to make a short cut from the Duddery, and took my way across it,” answered the stranger.
Jack did not hear more of what was said; for Will having let go his arm, and the crowd pressing on them, they were speedily separated from each other. Jack looked about for his friend, but old Brinsmead’s low-crowned hat was completely concealed by the higher beavers of more pretentious and taller persons. He pushed on as well as he could among the crowd, hoping to overtake Brinsmead, but probably passed him. Suddenly he caught sight, as he thought, of the worthy drover’s broad-built figure, moving in a different direction to what he had expected at a pretty quick rate. This made Jack exert himself to overtake him. By the time he came up with the chase, he found that he had been following a stranger. At last, after wandering about in all directions, he gave up the search as hopeless, and determined to amuse himself as best he could, and then to try and find his way back to their quarters in Cambridge.
Jack, not quite entering into Brinsmead’s opinions with regard to the wrongfulness of watching the tricks of the mummers and mountebanks and other similar performers, had stopped before the booth of a conjurer, who was by his amusing tricks producing a succession of broad grins on the countenances of a crowd of rustics standing round him, and occasional loud shouts of laughter. As the hubbub for a moment ceased, Jack heard his name pronounced; and turning round, he saw two persons of a class superior to the generality of the crowd standing close to him. The eyes of one of them especially were fixed on him. The other he recognised as the humble college student who had passed him and Brinsmead on their entrance into Cambridge. A second glance showed him that the student’s companion was no other than his quondam acquaintance Master Pearson, though no longer habited as a drover, but as a substantial merchant, with a long coat of fine broadcloth, a broad-brimmed beaver on the top of his periwig, a long neckcloth, and high-heeled shoes with huge buckles.