92 THE SOUTH COUNTRY 



I recognized the man who was born in Caermarthenshire. 

 A cart came close behind, drawn by a fat grey donkey 

 who needed no driving, for the one who rode in the cart 

 had his back to the shafts, and, leaning forward on a tub 

 into which money was expected to be thrown, he appeared 

 to be talking to those who trailed at the back, for he 

 waved an arm and wagged his yellow beard. He was fat, 

 and dressed in a silk hat, frock-coat and striped trousers, 

 almost too ancient to be ridiculous had they not kept 

 company with a jaunty pair of yellow boots. He was 

 midway between a seaside minstrel and a minister, had 

 not one gesture destroyed the resemblance by showing 

 that he wore no socks. Round about his coat also were 

 the words : " The Unemployed," repeated or crudely 

 varied. Those whom he addressed were the fifteen or 

 twenty who completed the procession but seemed not to 

 listen. They were all bent, young or middle-aged men, 

 fair-haired, with unintentional beards, road-coloured skins 

 and slightly darker clothes. Many wore overcoats, the 

 collars turned up, and some had nothing under them 

 except a shirt, and one not that. All with hands in 

 pockets, one carrying a pipe, all silent and ashamed, 

 struggled onward with bent knees. No two walked 

 together; there was no approach to a row or a column in 

 their arrangement, nor was there any pleasing irregularity 

 as of plants grown from chance-scattered seed; by no 

 means could they have been made to express more feeble- 

 ness, more unbrotherliness, more lack of principle, pur- 

 pose or control. Each had the look of the meanest thief 

 between his captors. Two blue, benevolent, impersonal 

 policemen, large men, occasionally lifted their arms as if 



