occurred to them that an ingenious way of preventing this would be not to cross the meadow. So they went the long way round, and the two soldiers spent a lonely day.
“What I sez,” said Friesshardt, “is, wot’s the use of us wasting our time here?” (Friesshardt was not a very well-educated man, and he did not speak good grammar.) “None of these here people ain’t a-going to bow down to that there hat. Of course they ain’t. Why, I can remember the time when this meadow was like a fair—everybody a-shoving and a-jostling one another for elbow-room; and look at it now! It's a desert. That’s what it is, a desert. What’s the good of us wasting of our time here, I sez. That’s what I sez.
“And they’re artful, too, mind yer,” he continued. “Why, only this morning, I sez to myself, ‘Friesshardt,’ I sez, ‘you just wait till twelve o’clock,’ I sez, 'cos that’s when they
