{"id":"01KG8AKFM04N0Q040N33MVFAJ8","cid":"bafkreidddsglvebp6ukon6gnztuxhhqlrko7vyaklvrxabh7qy3rxpj7y4","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":7270,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:05.594Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J1DKC9HHJRKY25JZBEXW","start_line":7211,"text":"strangers, at the more public corners and intersections of sewers—the\r\nCharing-Crosses below; one soldier having the other by his remainder\r\nbutton, earnestly discussing the sad prospects of a rise in bread, or\r\nthe tide; while through the grating of the gutters overhead, the rusty\r\nskylights of the realm, came the hoarse rumblings of bakers’ carts,\r\nwith splashes of the flood whereby these unsuspected gnomes of the city\r\nlived.\r\n\r\nEncouraged by the exodus of the lost tribes of soldiers, Israel\r\nreturned to chair-bottoming. And it was in frequenting Covent-Garden\r\nmarket, at early morning, for the purchase of his flags, that he\r\nexperienced one of the strange alleviations hinted of above. That\r\nchatting with the ruddy, aproned, hucksterwomen, on whose moist cheeks\r\nyet trickled the dew of the dawn on the meadows; that being surrounded\r\nby bales of hay, as the raker by cocks and ricks in the field; those\r\nglimpses of garden produce, the blood-beets, with the damp earth still\r\ntufting the roots; that mere handling of his flags, and bethinking him\r\nof whence they must have come, the green hedges through which the wagon\r\nthat brought them had passed; that trudging home with them as a gleaner\r\nwith his sheaf of wheat;—all this was inexpressibly grateful. In want\r\nand bitterness, pent in, perforce, between dingy walls, he had rural\r\nreturns of his boyhood’s sweeter days among them; and the hardest\r\nstones of his solitary heart (made hard by bare endurance alone) would\r\nfeel the stir of tender but quenchless memories, like the grass of\r\ndeserted flagging, upsprouting through its closest seams. Sometimes,\r\nwhen incited by some little incident, however trivial in itself,\r\nthoughts of home would—either by gradually working and working upon\r\nhim, or else by an impetuous rush of recollection—overpower him for a\r\ntime to a sort of hallucination.\r\n\r\nThus was it:—One fair half-day in the July of 1800, by good luck, he\r\nwas employed, partly out of charity, by one of the keepers, to trim the\r\nsward in an oval enclosure within St. James’ Park, a little green but a\r\nthree-minutes’ walk along the gravelled way from the brick-besmoked and\r\ngrimy Old Brewery of the palace which gives its ancient name to the\r\npublic resort on whose borders it stands. It was a little oval, fenced\r\nin with iron pailings, between whose bars the imprisoned verdure peered\r\nforth, as some wild captive creature of the woods from its cage. And\r\nalien Israel there—at times staring dreamily about him—seemed like some\r\namazed runaway steer, or trespassing Pequod Indian, impounded on the\r\nshores of Narraganset Bay, long ago; and back to New England our exile\r\nwas called in his soul. For still working, and thinking of home; and\r\nthinking of home, and working amid the verdant quietude of this little\r\noasis, one rapt thought begat another, till at last his mind settled\r\nintensely, and yet half humorously, upon the image of Old Huckleberry,\r\nhis mother’s favorite old pillion horse; and, ere long, hearing a\r\nsudden scraping noise (some hob-shoe without, against the iron\r\npailing), he insanely took it to be Old Huckleberry in his stall,\r\nhailing him (Israel) with his shod fore-foot clattering against the\r\nplanks—his customary trick when hungry—and so, down goes Israel’s hook,\r\nand with a tuft of white clover, impulsively snatched, he hurries away\r\na few paces in obedience to the imaginary summons. But soon stopping\r\nmidway, and forlornly gazing round at the enclosure, he bethought him\r\nthat a far different oval, the great oval of the ocean, must be crossed\r\nere his crazy errand could be done; and even then, Old Huckleberry\r\nwould be found long surfeited with clover, since, doubtless, being dead\r\nmany a summer, he must be buried beneath it. And many years after, in a\r\nfar different part of the town, and in far less winsome weather too,\r\npassing with his bundle of flags through Red-Cross street, towards\r\nBarbican, in a fog so dense that the dimmed and massed blocks of\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJJRWNYCFCKFX5G6XWAGY","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1DKC9HHJRKY25JZBEXW","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKFKTX113ZA256JK3V7P5","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKFKTJKZQSJZ83D76461H","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:05.760Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:18.796Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}