Finn bade his grandfather good-bye and mounted the cart beside his uncle. They passed the last house in the street and went by fields where the corncrakes were still keeping up their revels. A cart creaked before them, but the figures upon it were still indistinct. Candles were burning in cottages where men were making ready for the far-away fair. Suddenly a bird gave a frightened squawk. There was silence again and then another bird went over a few notes. In a while all the birds were singing together—blackbirds, thrushes, robins, linnets and finches—as though they were all in the one nest with their heads held up and their dewy wings spread out.

For an hour, as the cart went on, they heard the chorus of the birds. The light grew wider, the wind lost the sullenness of the night and the dogs became satisfied of the honesty of the day. Then the geese began to cackle. The songbirds refused to be drawn into competition and the chorus ceased.

Then the birds of no song were seen and heard. The rooks cawed as they flew down from the trees, the pigeons cooed, the swallows twittered as they skimmed the grass by the side of the roadway, and the magpie chucked out her queer notes as she hopped on before the cart. And now they fell in with vehicles on their way to the fair—crates filled with calves or with lambs—and Finn's uncle exchanged with the men many observations on prices current, that is to say, on the present cost of food and clothes. It was about eight in the morning when they came into the town. Here Bartley was to receive the sacks of wool they were to carry to Dublin. Finn remembered the little speckled fish he got with his breakfast in this place. Before the market began they were on the road again.

And now Finn had a comfortable sack of wool at his back. They passed children going to school, some of them comparing figures in an exercise book and others hearing each other's lessons. Finn longed to tell them that for him there was no school—that for day after day, giving no heed to lessons, he would travel along the road to Dublin. For long he had the exultation of this thought and with the eyes of a truant he watched the scores of rabbits that ventured on the road and that sat down on their haunches and waited until the cart came near. He saw a hare running a race with itself across a field. It sat down to watch the travellers at its ease and when Finn, standing up in the cart, started it by cracking Bartley's whip, it ran back on its tracks, more and more delighted with its own speed.

And now it was afternoon and the trees were making long shadows across the road. There was green on each side—high green hedges and deep green grass. On each side there was a row of beech trees and their little leaves were so full of sunlight that it was a delight to watch their play. Past where the travellers met a foolish boy with a flock of black-faced lambs that baaed around him, they came upon a thick-set man with a black beard of a fashion that Finn had never seen before. He had a pack on his back and as they passed him he said to Bartley, "Good-morning, sar."

Bartley told Finn that the man was a Jew.

Was he a Jew like those mentioned in the story of Our Lord?

Bartley said he was.

The cart was pulled up, and while the horse bit at the hedges Finn watched the sallow-faced, black-bearded man come on.

Was he the man whom his grandfather had spoken about—the wandering Jew who had denied Our Lord a place to rest and who now had to walk all the roads of the world?

The man placed his pack on the ditch and opened it. He showed them pictures with golden frames—pictures of Angels with blue and red garments, of the Queen of the Angels with a golden crown upon her head and of Daniel O'Connell with his hand laid upon his breast. Bartley wouldn't buy any of the pictures. He purchased a red handkerchief for himself and a little pen-knife for Finn. The cart went on again and Finn watched the Jew labouring along the road like one who had come a long journey and was unused to travelling a-foot.

Later in the afternoon they met the man with the Peep-Show. He had a high stick in his hand and he carried on his back a box covered with a black cloth. He was a big man with a round, boneless face, dark glasses across his eyes and a black cap drawn over a big, closely-cropped head. When the cart came alongside him Bartley drew up and invited the Peep-Show man to take a lift.

"I am obliged to you," the man said, using many words which Finn now heard for the first time, "I am obliged for your offer. But I imagine your journey is along the main road while I must betake myself to the bye-ways. So, friend, I shall not incommode you by taking a seat on your vehicle. But, may I ask, do you travel far?"

"We are going to Dublin in the latter end," said Bartley.

"I once used to make my journey as far as the capital," the Peep-Show man said, "but I have not been in Dublin for a considerable term of years. I fear the young people of the city are above regarding my Peep-Show. I fear it."

"So you're the Peep-Show man," said Bartley. "It's twenty years since I took my peep into your box. It was at the fair of Ballina I met you, if you'll remember."

"Undoubtedly," said the Peep-Show man, "undoubtedly, friend, you saw me at the fair of Ballina. And you might have seen me at many another fair for the matter of that—at many another fair. I was as famed as Daniel O'Connell. But the Devil began to make me see strange things in my Peep-Show, and since then I have been in a place of rest. If you hear anyone speak of Nab the Peep-Show man, tell them, friend, that Nab was away."

"I suppose you have the same sights in the box now as you had then?"

"Undoubtedly, friend. Nothing is changed, I assure you. Absolutely the same objects."

"I saw Napoleon crossing the Alps."

"Undoubtedly, friend, you saw Napoleon crossing the Alps. But let me tell you, friend, that twenty years ago you were incapable of understanding that great historic scene—absolutely incapable of understanding it. But there are two other objects in my box that would have been more in conformity with your youthful understanding—Lima, the capital of Peru which stands fifteen thousand feet above the sea-level, and also the "Meeting between Valentine and Orson, the Sons of the Emperor of Greece."

"Would you like to look into the Peep-Show?" said Bartley to Finn.

"I would," said Finn.

Nab, the Peep-Show man, left his box on a mile-stone.

"Let him see the "Meeting of Valentine and Orson," said Bartley. "I often heard my father talk of them two."

"Undoubtedly they are two very celebrated characters in ancient history," said the Peep-Show man, "and I am astonished to find that their story is so little known to the people nowadays. I understand they were sons to the Emperor of Greece and one of them,—Orson, if I remember aright,—was stolen away as a child and reared most rudely in the depths of a forest. The other, I understand, was reared in a way befitting his rank and station. Orson wore the skins of beasts and was hardly acquainted with the sounds of human language. One day when Valentine was hunting in the forest his brother appeared before him, muttering like a bear, with a club in his hands and most awful to behold. That is the meeting of Valentine and Orson. For the sum of two pence the boy can gaze upon this celebrated object.

Finn dismounted and came to the Peep-Show with beating heart.

"Direct your eye to this orifice," said Nab. Finn looked into the darkness. Like a child he thought of what he was going to see, not as something that was there already, but as something that would be created like a star for him.

"What do you see?" asked the Peep-Show man.

"A man with a big stick in his hand," said Finn.

"That is his club and the man who bears it is Orson."

The Peep-Show man shook the box. "What do you see now?" he asked.

"The man with the club is gone."

"And what do you see now?"

"A man on a horse."

"Dear me, dear me, dear me! The object you see now is Napoleon crossing the Alps."

Finn did not take his eye off the object.

"Undoubtedly," said the Peep-Show man, "undoubtedly Valentine is lost. My box was five years in their office. All the time I was composing my mind the Peep-Show lay with their rubbish. Did I not see a spider spinning his web across this orifice? Undoubtedly Valentine is lost. I give you back one of the pennies."

The Peep-Show man put the box on his back and started off down a bye-road.

And now the beech-trees were no longer each side of them, for the country had opened into the black spaces of the bog. Upon this road they met carts and people. Drays coming from some town, piled with sacks of flour, crossed crates of black turf. Such wide bogs Finn never had seen before. The bog-cotton grew in beds like white-headed flowers and straggled out to the road. The wood dug out of the depths of the bog, dried in the sunlight, looked like heaps of bones. And all across the black surface were piles of black turf. Finn rested his back against the comfortable wool-sack and while his uncle was singing ballads, "On a Monday Morning early, as my wandering steps did lead me," and "The gown she wore was stained with gore," Finn fell asleep.

It was cold when he wakened and the white mists were rising from the bog. He was thankful when his uncle bought him a bag of ginger-cakes in a wayside shop. They went on again and the whiteness of their wings was noticeable as the geese trudged home. The cows mooed anxiously and Finn thought how glad they would be of the shelter of the byre. They passed through a little village where the children were playing, and again, they were on the open road.

And now the woods grew black and Finn saw the owls sweeping out like great white moths. Lighted candles made wayside houses look very comfortable. On and on they went. Then they halted before a forge where men were standing around a standing horse. Bartley called to someone inside. The smith came out and welcomed him, calling Bartley "Honest man," and when Bartley asked might they stay with him for the night the smith said, "To be sure," and "welcome."

The smith's sons took charge of Finn and the smith's wife gave him a supper of porridge and tea. At night he told the boys of Nab, the Peep-show man. And the boys told Finn too about a circus that had been in a field near the forge. Finn slept with the boys in a loft and he was awakened by the first light of the morning. Before the ring of iron on iron was heard in the forge Bartley and he had started on the road again.