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The firm horse-fen lay, bright green, along the foot of the wold; beyond it, the browner peat, or deep fen; and among it, dark velvet alder beds, long lines of reed-rond, emerald in spring, and golden under the autumn sun; shining river-reaches; broad meres dotted with a million fowl, while the cattle waded along their edges after the rich sedge-grass, or wallowed in the mire through the hot summer's day.
Before, he had wallowed in the one extreme of society, but now he lolled at the other. While before he had been neglected and despised by his fellow rivals, he was now courted, and admired, and feasted almost to death: so much does the possession of the coin-asset change people's opinions with regard to others.
Glynn uttered a cry something between a yell and a laugh, and sprang after him, falling flat on the water and dashing the whole pool into foam, and there the two wallowed about like two porpoises, to the unbounded delight of Ailie, who stood on the brink laughing until the tears ran down her cheeks, and to the unutterable horror, no doubt, of the little fish.
Some amphoræ lay broken on the floor letting the wine escape like streams of blood, and the drunken men wallowed in the gurgling liquid as it soaked into the earthen floor, calling for drinks of which they had vaguely heard on distant voyages, or for fantastic dishes conceived by the little tyrants of Asia.
True, Omar Ben had tasted the herb before, but dry and in five-cent packages, which was different from the pure article direct from nature's still and exuding its sharp, intoxicating breath. Pete and Omar fell upon it greedily, rolled upon it, wallowed among the scattered leaves, and chewed and chewed till their senses swam in a spirit-dance of ecstasy.
For of course I offered my services there, climbing up that decent red-carpeted stairway, and glad to find myself among respectable surroundings after all the unseemly holes I had lately wallowed in. I sent up a card which, to my surprise, caused me to be ushered forthwith into the presence of the Chief, who may have heard of my existence from some mutual friend.
But he had no time to finish his speech, for in a moment the barn-door flew open, and more than five-and-twenty dogs, great and small, the very vagrants and scum of the town, offered up as a sacrifice to do honour to the occasion, wallowed in a heap into the yard, howling and yelling, barking, snapping, and snarling; then, as if second thoughts had rather modified their ideas about valour, they all retreated into a safe corner of the yard, the farthest from the bear, where they contented themselves with angry protests, making short runs at the enemy and quick retreats, making a very sorry pretence of war.
Here and there glimmered the portions of the ground covered by the flood. Slate-blue buffaloes wallowed in the pools and emerged covered with mud; water birds stood along the edges, and sometimes flew off as the train passed, watched by families of fellahs, squatting on the banks of the ditches.
But of a hot summer's afternoon, after having already heard one sermon, which could not in the nature of things have the charm of novelty of presentation to the members of the home circle, and the theology of which was not too clear to tender apprehensions; with three hymns more or less lugubrious, rendered by a village-choir, got into voice by many preliminary snuffles and other expiratory efforts, and accompanied by the snort of a huge bassviol which wallowed through the tune like a hippopotamus, with other exercises of the customary character, after all this in the forenoon, the afternoon walk to the meeting-house in the hot sun counted for as much, in my childish dead-reckoning, as from old Israel Porter's in Cambridge to the Exchange Coffeehouse in Boston did in after years.
In short, there was no law of health which these people did not utterly ignore, no excess dangerous to health which they did not commit. Three-fourths of them were too sick for duty, and the rest looked like living skeletons. They fairly wallowed in their own filth and cursed the climate of Cuba on account of their sickness.
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