“Then we can get across to it this way,” answered Williams, beginning to make a passage through the crowd. “Keep you close to me.”
He shouldered a path through the human waves. It was a big fair, and the inhabitants of other towns had patronized it largely; one or two lounging youths with their hats on one side looked impertinently at Mary, who was made more conspicuous by the flowers she carried. She shrank closer to her companion; he drew her hand under his arm and they went forward.
They passed the pens where the live stock were delighting the gaze of the initiated, and found themselves outside a kind of curtained platform, at either end of which was a large placard. To judge by these, all the most celebrated persons the earth contained were to be found behind the curtain, and would, when the showman had collected enough from the bystanders, be revealed to the public eye. The crowd was so thick in this place that George and Mary found it almost impossible to move, though they had no particular wish to see the Fat Woman, the Wild Indian, the Emperor of China, and all the other inspiring personalities who apparently dwelt in godly unity in the tent at the back of the stage. There was a great collecting of coppers going on, and the showman’s hat having reached the fulness he expected, he sprang upon the platform and announced that the show was about to begin.
“An’ about toime too,” observed the voice of Howlie Seaborne, who was in the foremost row of spectators; “oi thought them coppers would be moiking a fresh ’ole in the crown.”
For three months Howlie had kept Harry’s gift intact; he had laid it carefully by, resisting any temptation to spend even a fraction, so that, when Llangarth Fair should come round, his cup of pleasure should be brimming. He had already laid a shilling out on a knife which he admired, but, in the main, he had gone down the row of booths casting withering looks on such wares as displeased him, occasionally taking up some article, and, after a careful examination, laying it down again with quiet contempt.
Sweets were simply beneath his notice, and he passed the places in which they were displayed more insolently than any others. To him, the merry-go-round was foolishness, and those who trusted their persons astride of puce-coloured dragons and grass-green horses, fools; but the mysteries behind the curtain appealed to his curiosity. He now stood in the most desirable position amongst the audience waiting for the show to begin; on his right was a stout, high-nosed farmer’s wife in a black silk bonnet.
After a short disappearance the showman came forward carrying a stick with which he tapped the curtain. It flew up disclosing a stupendous lady in purple velveteen, with a wreath of scarlet wax camellias on her head. She was seated at a table.
“Seenyora Louisa, a native of Italy! The stoutest female living!” bawled the showman. The lady blew a promiscuous kiss. “She will now sing an Italian song!”
At this the lady rose and took a step forward, the stage shaking under her tread. She cleared her throat and began in a shrill treble, so disproportionate to her size that the effect was more startling than if she had roared aloud, as, indeed, one almost expected her to do. The song was evidently a translation.