"
A scene in a public-house, yes! but in a Welsh public-house. Only
think of a Suffolk toper repeating the death-bed verses of a poet;
surely there is a considerable difference between the Celt and the
Saxon.
CHAPTER XXII
Llangollen Fair - Buyers and Sellers - The Jockey - The Greek Cap.
ON the twenty-first was held Llangollen Fair. The day was dull
with occasional showers. I went to see the fair about noon. It
was held in and near a little square in the south-east quarter of
the town, of which square the police-station is the principal
feature on the side of the west, and an inn, bearing the sign of
the Grapes, on the east. The fair was a little bustling fair,
attended by plenty of people from the country, and from the English
border, and by some who appeared to come from a greater distance
than the border. A dense row of carts extended from the police-
station half across the space, these carts were filled with pigs,
and had stout cord-nettings drawn over them, to prevent the animals
escaping. By the sides of these carts the principal business of
the fair appeared to be going on - there stood the owners male and
female, higgling with Llangollen men and women, who came to buy.
The pigs were all small, and the price given seemed to vary from
eighteen to twenty-five shillings.
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