After breakfast the whole family set out for the Moor. Odiam looked unnatural with its empty yard, where the discouraged Beatup mouched, gazing longingly and chewing a straw. But every farm round Boarzell looked the same, for Boarzell Fair emptied the neighbourhood as completely as a pilgrimage would empty a Breton hamlet—only the beasts and unwilling house-keepers were left behind.
Though it was not yet ten o'clock the Fair was crowded. A shout greeted Harry's appearance with his fiddle, for it was never too early to dance. Blind Harry climbed on his tub, flourished his bow with many horrible smiles—for he loved his treats of popularity and attention—and started the new tune "My Decided Decision," which Caro and Tilly had taught him the day before. Albert immediately caught a pretty girl by the waist, and spun round with her on the grass while Pete vanished into the sparring-booth, his shoulders already out of his coat. Mrs. Backfield led off Caro and Tilly, looking sidelong at the dancers, to the more staid entertainment of the stalls. Jemmy and George ran straight to the merry-go-round, which now worked by steam, and hooted shrilly as it swung. Robert and Richard stood with their arms folded, watching the dancing with very different expressions on their faces.
At last Robert decided to lead out Emily Ditch, thinking that it might lull his father's suspicions if he had any. As a matter of fact the son Reuben watched most closely was Albert. He looked upon Robert's affair as settled, for the present at any rate, and credited him—perhaps rightly—with so poor a cunning that an occasional glance would serve; whereas Albert's oiled hair, stiff shirt-front, and clean white handkerchief roused all his fears and carefulness together.
After the dance, which did not last long, as poor Robert trod so heavily on his partner's feet that she soon begged him to stop, they strolled off round the Fair. Robert thought that if he made it a custom to roam among the booths his father would not notice his final disappearance so quickly. Lord! he was getting a hemmed crafty fellow. All the boys were allowed a shilling or two to spend at the Fair, so Robert treated Emily to a ride on the merry-go-round and five sea-sick minutes in the swings. Then he took Mrs. Button—Realf's married daughter, who had come over from Hove, to see the Panorama and a new attraction in the shape of a fat lady, which struck him as disgusting, but made her laugh tremendously.
He clung to Mrs. Button for most of the morning and afternoon, for he felt that she drove away suspicion, and at the same time had not the disadvantage of Emily Ditch, who had once or twice alarmed him by affectionately squeezing his hand. He did not take her to the fighting booth, as public opinion had shut that to ladies during the years that had passed since Reuben had sat with Naomi in the heat and sawdust—but she stood behind him in the shooting gallery, whilst he impartially scored bulls in the mouths of Disraeli, Gladstone, and the Emperor of France.
"Let's go and dance now," she said as he pocketed his bag of nuts.
Robert wondered anxiously what time it was; already a faint blear of red was creeping into the cold, twinkling afternoon. The moon rose at a quarter to five—when he saw it come up into the sky out of Iden Wood he must go to Meridiana's tent. He led Mrs. Button to where the dancers jigged to Harry's unending tune. Reuben stood on the outskirts, among the spectators, watching with a stern eye Albert snatch kisses off a Winchelsea girl's brown neck as he swung her round. Luckily for Robert his brother was behaving outrageously—his misdeeds were as usual flagrant; just at that moment he pulled down his partner's hair, and they whirled about together, laughing in the coarse mesh that blinded them both. Reuben's mouth was a hard, straight line, and his eyes like steel. He scarcely noticed Robert and Mrs. Button hopping about together, and he did not see when half an hour later the boy stole away alone.
Robert felt warm and glowing—he had enjoyed that dance, and wished he could have danced with Bessie. Perhaps he would dance with her some day.... Behind him, the creak of Harry's fiddle sounded plaintively, with every now and then a hoot from the merry-go-round. The dusk was falling quickly. Yellow flares sprang up from the stalls, casting a strange web of light and darkness over the Fair. Gideon Teazel looked like some carved Colossus as he stood by the roundabout, his great beard glowing on his breast like flames ... behind, in the smeeth of twilight, with the wriggling flare of the lamps, the lump of dancers did not seem to dance, but to writhe like some monster on the green, sending out tentacles, shooting up spines, emitting strange grunts and squalls—and at the back of it all the jig, jig, jig of Harry's tune.
Further on, in the secrecy of the tents and caravans, the dusk became full of cowering shapes, sometimes slipping and sliding about apart, sometimes blotted together ... there were whispers, rustlings, strugglings, low cries of "döan't" and "adone do!"—the sound of kisses ... kisses ... they followed Robert all the way to Meridiana's tent, where, standing in the brazier glow, and flushed besides with crimson of her own, stood Bessie.