Chapter 1 Welsh Cattle 
T has been told elsewhere how the little boys 
at Farnborough village school rather liked to 
be naughty at certain seasons and made to 
Stand on the form, because from the form 
they could look out of the window and see any- 
thing that passed along the road. Such a season, 
especially, must have been the few days before 
and after Blackwater Fair—the 8th of November ; 
for then the roads, those elm-lined Farnborough 
roads, usually so quiet, were lively with frequent 
herds of Welsh cattle going to or from the fair. 
It was doubtless a sight well worth being 
punished for. Long years afterwards I too— 
though with none of the luck of the Farnborough 
boys (my education was neglected: I never went 
to a school where they stood on forms)—used to 
wonder at the multitudes of cattle, going from 
Blackwater then to Farnham Fair on November 
the roth. Smallish black beasts they were, if I 
remember right, with long horns. But for how 
many ages already, before Farmer Smith’s time, 
Welsh cattle had been a feature of Blackwater 
Fair I cannot even conjecture. Mrs. Piozzi 
speaks of cattle at that fair, in her Italian travels ; 
earlier still (August 17, 1763) Wesley had crossed 
the New Passage of the Severn, going from Bristol 
17 B 
