IN WILTSHIRE 313 



offices, shanties set up for fairing purposes and 

 shut up on other dates. Remains they are, 

 mostly, of former prosperity ; not exactly tumble- 

 down, still, the sort of property you would want 

 very well done up by a landlord before you took 

 any on repairing lease. When you have got 

 them you must take them in the rough, the very 

 rough indeed. 



Do I expect Carlton Hotels and Caf6s Royal 

 in the midst of wild Wessex, and are ''a la" 

 menus in my opinion appropriate for hungry 

 bucolics requiring a very great deal for a very 

 little money and going more for quantity than 

 quality? Them are not my sentiments at all. 

 Still, perhaps I am not wrong in saying that, all 

 round, people want things a little more ''classy" 

 than they were in the Crimean war times. That 

 being so, I may be excused for writing them off 

 as not quite up to date, if they are now presented 

 unrestored after standing the stress of half a 

 century's wear and tear without suggestion of 

 ever being closed for alteration and repair. A 

 concern out by itself is the Weyhill fair ground, 

 that has to be experienced to be appreciated, and 

 must miss most of its significance to an observer 

 who has not seen men and cities and chanced in 

 his travels through bookland to tumble on the 

 school whose speciality was the agriculturist of 

 the bygone age and his aids. Having without 

 the slightest justification looked for a little colony 

 glued on to the side of a steep hill, after the 

 fashion of the village in Robin Hood's Bay, up 

 Whitby way, only on top instead of at the 

 foot of the steep slope, I was at first vexed that 

 all was different from my fancy sketches. What 

 village, per se, exists is scattered — at least the 



