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. Those who bought pigs generally carried them away
in their arms; and then there was no little diversion; dire was the
screaming of the porkers, yet the purchaser invariably appeared to know
how to manage his bargain, keeping the left arm round the body of the
swine and with the right hand fast griping the ear—some few were led away
by strings. There were some Welsh cattle, small of course, and the
purchasers of these seemed to be Englishmen, tall burly fellows in
general, far exceeding the Welsh in height and size.
Much business in the cattle-line did not seem, however, to be going on.
Now and then a big fellow made an offer, and held out his hand for a
little Pictish grazier to give it a slap—a cattle bargain being concluded
by a slap of the hand—but the Welshman generally turned away, with a
half-resentful exclamation. There were a few horses and ponies in a
street leading into the fair from the south.
I saw none sold, however. A tall athletic figure was striding amongst
them, evidently a jockey and a stranger, looking at them and occasionally
asking a slight question of one or another of their proprietors, but he
did not buy. He might in age be about eight-and-twenty, and about six
feet and three-quarters of an inch in height; in build he was perfection
itself—a better-built man I never saw. He wore a cap and a brown jockey
coat, trowsers, leggings and highlows, and sported a single spur. He had
whiskers—all jockeys should have whiskers—but he had what I did not like,
and what no genuine jockey should have, a moustache, which looks
coxcombical and Frenchified—but most things have terribly changed since I
was young. Three or four hardy-looking fellows, policemen, were gliding
about in their blue coats and leather hats, holding their thin
walking-sticks behind them; conspicuous amongst whom was the leader, a
tall lathy North Briton with a keen eye and hard features. Now if I add
there was much gabbling of Welsh round about, and here and there some
slight sawing of English—that in the street leading from the north there
were some stalls of gingerbread and a table at which a queer-looking
being with a red Greek-looking cap on his head, sold rhubarb, herbs, and
phials containing the Lord knows what, and who spoke a low vulgar English
dialect,—I repeat, if I add this, I think I have said all that is
necessary about Llangollen Fair.