A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE COUNTRY. 45 



unchanging procession of heart-breaking loveliness, 

 the more we know ourselves to be uninitiate ; the 

 nearer to tears its beauty brings us, we see the clearer 

 that there is a secret we cannot share. 



April $rd. I went down to the village to-day to 

 see the Spring Fair, which has been held in the street, 

 between the church and the old toll-gate, for five 

 hundred and odd years by record. Under a grey 

 cloudy daylight the street shows a crowd of men 

 and beasts, the customary wide spaces of desert mud 

 being thronged for the day with the agricultural 

 "interest" of all the country-side. In the roadway- 

 stand bullocks in small droves, kept in station by 

 shrill yells and the merciless ash-plants of a peculiar 

 race of ragged nondescripts, half-gipsy and half- 

 tramp, who follow the fairs and markets. Here are 

 deep red, long-backed Sussex steers, black Scots, 

 miserable little cross-bred heifers, which huddle or 

 bolt in puzzled misery. Horses of dejected appear- 

 . ance are tied in strings by the footpath, or ridden at 

 a gallop through the thick of the traffic by long- 

 coated gipsies with wonderful seats, accompanied 

 with halloos and the " hi hi hi ! " which seems the 

 traditional encouragement to unwilling nags on these 

 occasions. Near the church entry there are some 



