Rattenbury loquitur. He keeps school at sea—fishes for sole, turbot, brill; any kind of fish that comes to hook. B.: Which do you catch oftenest, soles or tubs? R.: Oh, the devil a tub—(great laughter)—there are too many picaroons going now-a-day. B.: You have caught a good many in your time? R.: Ah, plenty of it! I wish you and I had as much of it as we could drink—(laughter). B.: You kept school at home and trained up your son? R.: I have always trained him up in a regular honourable way, larnt him the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments. B.: You don’t find there, Thou shalt not smuggle? R.: No, but I find there, Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. B.: Nobody smuggles now-a-day? R.: Don’t they, though! (Laughter.) B.: So these horses at Beer cannot go above three or four miles an hour? R.: If you had not better horses you would never get to London. I seldom ride on horse-back. If I do, I generally falls off seven or eight times in a journey—(great laughter).

Rattenbury’s adventures now come to an end, and he appears to have settled down to a quiet life for the remainder of his days, Lord Rolle having generously allowed him a pension of one shilling a week for life.[[27]]

Maxwell Adams.

FAIR.
By Thomas Wainwright.

Barnstaple Fair, although now deprived of some of its ancient commercial importance by the establishment of great markets at other centres in North Devon, still attracts great numbers of purchasers of horses, Exmoor ponies, cattle, and sheep, reared by the agriculturists of the neighbourhood. Buyers attend the fair not only from all parts of Devonshire, but also from places beyond the borders of the county, among others cavalry officers come in some years to purchase horses for the military service of the country, while visitors from a wide district around the town arrive in large numbers to enjoy the “fun of the fair.”

This annual event has a very ancient history, for the claim of the town to the right to hold the fair is granted in Charters and recognized in Inquisitions from an early period, in one of which Inquisitions the jurors say that among divers liberties and free customs used and enjoyed by the burgesses of the Borough by the Charter of the Lord Athelstan, of famous memory, King of England, is the right to hold one fair in the year. The date of the fair was anciently July 21st, 22nd, 23rd, and 24th, as appears from the following regulations, which were in force for a long period:—

1st. The fair shall continue for four days, viz., on the eve and the day of the blessed Mary Magdalene and the two next days following.

2nd. The whole soil of Boutport Street and the other streets within the said Borough belongs to the Mayor and Comonaltie of the said Borough during the fair and until 12 o’clock at noon on the day afterwards.

3rd. The said Mayor and Comonaltie may set and demise the said soil one day before the eve of the said fair, and have the whole profits of the said fair and the bailiff of the said Borough shall collect and receive the same.

4th. Also they shall there have the cognizance of Pleas and a court of Pie Poudre, as incident to all fairs.