Here were pigs, flesh-coloured and black, and great raddled rams in a panting row. Amid the brutes tramped farmers and their men.
The air was full of the smell of live mutton and swine; and among them—drifting, stopping in thoughtful knots, arguing, and laughing heavily, the slow-eyed yokels came and went. The rams bleated and dribbled and showed in a dozen ways their hatred of this publicity; the pigs cared not, but exhibited a stoic patience.
Upon the greensward beside the road stood separate clusters of guarded ponies. Old and young they were, gainly and ungainly, white, black, and brown, with their long manes and tails often bleached to a rusty pallor by the wind and sun.
In agitated groups the little creatures stood. Company cried to company with equine language, and the air was full of their squealings, uttered in long-drawn protests or sudden angry explosions.
Occasionally a new drove from afar would arrive and trot to its place in double and treble ranks—a passing billow of black and bright russet or dull brown, with foam of tossing manes, flash of frightened eyes, and soft thud and thunder of many unshod hoofs.
The people now came close, now scattered before a pair of uplifted heels where a pony, out of fear, showed temper. The exhibits were very unequal. Here a prosperous man marshalled a dozen colts; here his humbler neighbour could bring but three or four to market. Sometimes the group consisted of no more than a mare and foal at foot.
Round about were children, who from far off had ridden some solitary pony to the fair, and hoped that they might get the appointed price and carry money home to their parents or kinsfolk.
Hanging close on every side to the main business and thrusting in where space offered for a stall, rows of small booths sprang up; while beyond them on waste land stood the merry-go-rounds, spinning to bray of steam-driven organs, the boxing-tent, the beast show and the arena, where cocoanuts were lifted on posts against a cloth.
Here worked the wanderers and played their parts with shout and song; but at the heart of the fair more serious merchants stood above their varied wares, and with unequal skill and subtlety won purchasers. These men displayed divergent methods, all based on practical experience of human nature.
A self-assertive and defiant spirit sold braces and leather thongs and buckles. His art was to pretend the utmost indifference to his audience; he seemed not to care whether they purchased his goods or no, yet let it be clearly understood that none but a fool would miss the opportunities he offered.