198 NATURE NEAR LONDON 



ing, all intent, to the conversation of the gentlemen who 

 are examining his pens. He leads a young restless collie 

 by a chain ; the links are polished to a silvery brightness 

 by continual motion ; the collie cannot keep still ; now 

 he runs one side, now the other, bumping the old man, 

 who is unconscious of everything but the sheep. 



At the verge of the pens there stand four oxen with 

 their yokes, and the long slender guiding-rod of hazel 

 placed lightly across the necks of the two foremost. 

 They are quite motionless, except their eyes, and the 

 slender rod, so lightly laid across, will remain without 

 falling. After traversing the whole field, if you return 

 you will find them exactly in the same position. Some 

 black cattle are scattered about on the high ground in 

 the mist, which thickens beyond them, and fills up the 

 immense hollow of the valley. 



In the street of booths there are the roundabouts, the 

 swings, the rifle galleries like shooting into the mouth 

 of a great trumpet the shows, the cakes and brown nuts 

 and gingerbread, the ale-barrels in a row, the rude forms 

 and trestle tables ; just the same, the very same, we saw 

 at our first fair five-and- twenty years ago, and a hundred 

 miles away. It is just the same this year as last, like the 

 ploughs and hurdles, and the sheep themselves. There 

 is nothing new to tempt the ploughboy's pennies 

 nothing fresh to stare at. 



The same thing year after year, and the same sounds 

 the dismal barrel organs, and brazen instruments, and 

 pipes, wailing, droning, booming. How melancholy the 

 inexpressible noise when the fair is left behind, and 

 the wet vapours are settling and thickening around it ! 

 But the melancholy is not in the fair the ploughboy 

 likes it; it is in ourselves, in the thought that thus, 

 though the years go by, so much of human life remains 



