"Only," as Mrs. Bolitho said to her husband, "one thing's certain,
she do love 'im with all her heart and soul--poor lamb."
When Martin and Maggie had been at the farm about a fort-night,
there came to St. Dreot's a travelling circus. This was a very small
affair, but it came every year, and provided considerable excitement
for the village population. There were also gipsies who came on the
moor, and telling the fortunes of any who had a spare sixpence with
which to cross their palms. The foreign and exotic colour that the
circus and the gipsies brought into the village was exactly suited
to the St. Dreot blood. Many centuries ago strange galleys had
forced their way into bays and creeks of the southern coast, and
soon dark strangers had penetrated across the moors and fields and
had mingled with the natives of the plain. Scarcely an inhabitant of
St. Dreot but had some dark colour in his blood, a gift from those
Phoenician adventurers; scarcely an inhabitant but was conscious
from time to time of other strains, more tumultuous passions, than
the Saxon race could show.
This coming of the circus had in it, whether they knew it or no,
something of the welcoming of their own people back to them again.
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