Market-Day
Market-day found us passing through the county town, and it struck me that, though farmers may come-now in cars in place of traps, they change very little. If anything they are a little better dressed perhaps, but they are not the only ones. Burly men and lean men with a step unused to the hardness and levelness of the pavement, they are noticeable because of their tan. I may be wrong, but they seem to have a calm, steady look, and to be less hurried than the towns- men about their business. A cluster on the steps of " The Nag's Head" looked down at the market-stalls, where bales of coloured cotton were on sale alongside mounds of cheap crockery, "trees" of denim overalls, heaps of ready-made clothes. The scene was old, and the cries of the vendors the cries of yesterday. A shepherd came clumping past with a dog at his heels. The man's neck was like brown leather, and in his bony hand he held a stick. I watched him steering his way through the crowd, looking ahead as though in search of a missing ewe. His dog, too, was out of his element, and padded soberly at his heels, ignoring the wandering curs of the street.
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