124 SrilAY-ylWAYS 



VI 



A September morning spent in the fair of Galway 

 proved to be no sort of preparation for tlie September 

 morning spent a twelvemonth later in the fair of Odder. 

 I thought that the two might have had some points 

 in common; that the aboriginal Danish peasant 

 w^ould arise out of his fastness, like the " mountainy 

 man " of Connemara, who drives shaggy cattle and 

 ponies from untold distances, and finds the dark hours 

 of plodding a mere whet for the day's enjoyment, for 

 the long, luxurious lying, the intense moment when 

 the lump of mud, long flourished in the air, is at length 

 flung upon the back of the wild -eyed heifer in token 

 of purchase, the reeking jostle in the public-house, 

 the dripping can of XX, the glasses of whisky, the 

 green apples. 



But if Denmark, in all its pasture and sand, yet 

 conceals a fastness, the aboriginal Dane does not come 

 forth from it to the fair of Odder. On a slope outside 

 the town two lines of booths and a hundred yards of 

 trodden grass made a street, where a clean and quiet 

 crowd moved to and fro, pleasantly, but without 

 humour, and inspected gymnasts, monstrosities, and 

 merry-go-rounds with complete intelligence and un- 

 altered suavity. At the end of the street was an 

 equally quiet gathering of horses and cattle, through 

 which moved the peasant buyers and a prosperous 

 dealer or two, conducting bargains with an absence of 

 histrionic display, and an indifference to the artistic 

 aspects of a lie, that verged on cheerlessness. 



The horses were of the unvarying Danish breed, 

 long in the back, liigh and massive in the quarters 

 and crest, with the faces of placid and serious human 

 beings ; the cattle were religious in character, and a 

 singular contrast to the nimble and free-thinking herds 



