298 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



found explanation. Within the town you came 

 on a class drawn by the races, people whom 

 you seldom meet on occasions like this, knowing 

 enough on sporting matters in their way, but 

 not bearing the usual stamp of the accus- 

 tomed racegoer. They filled all the inns as 

 on an extra-special market day with no business 

 to do, except eat, drink, and be merry, and 

 thronged the streets, a very large proportion on 

 wheels. From all quarters they came, as you 

 might find out by getting about on the roads a 

 few miles out, where the ''half-way houses" 

 along long lines did rare trade, both with going 

 and returning wayfarers. On all hands you 

 heard great rejoicing that *'we" were going to 

 have races now, and make no mistake about it, 

 the folk of the district have only just now had 

 supply put on to cope with a long-established 

 demand. Putting out Newmarket, Doncaster, 

 and one or two other towns where meetings are 

 held, I should say that few benefited more in 

 their trade through a fixture than did Newbury, 

 which was singularly free from the predatory and 

 cadging fraternity. The solution of the puzzle as 

 to a sort of anachronistic inconsistency came 

 after a bit, in that this was an old-fashioned 

 meeting held on modern lines. To make it 

 complete you wanted a fair out in the open. I 

 did not want anything of the sort, I only speak 

 of it as an accessory to carry out the idea 

 inducted. The folk over the way were the very 

 stamp who brought off a double event, with 

 racing one and the fun of the fair another. And 

 in the higher grades of the attendance you found 

 here, there, and everywhere representatives of 

 the class who used to do the local races as a 



