THE market was in the open, in a paven square by the church. Each had
his own booth, and the cheeses stood in mounds between. There were a
sight of old women in decent shawls and cotton bonnets selling the same
as we had, butter and eggs and poultry. There was a stall for
gingerbread and one for mince-pies. There was a sunbonnet stall and a
toy stall, and one for gewgaws such as strings of coral and china cats,
shoe buckles and amulets and beaded reticules. It was a merry scene,
with the bright holly and mistletoe, the cheeses yellow in the sun, and
the gingerbread as brown and sticky as chestnut buds.
The butcher stood at his door, which gave on to the market-place,
shouting his meat, and holding up a long, shining knife, enough to make
you think the French were coming. There was a woman selling hot potatoes
and pig’s fry, and a crockman who put up his wares to auction, and every
time the clock chimed he broke summat, keeping some “_seconds_” in
readiness, which served to amuse the people. Then the mummers came along
and gave us a treat, and in one corner the beast-leech was pulling teeth
out for a penny each, and had a crowd watching. What with them all
shouting, and the mummers mouthing their parts, and the crash of broken
china, and beasts lowing and bleating from the fair ground close by, and
the chimes ringing out very sweet at the half-hours, you may think there
was a cheerful noise.
When we’d got rid of our goods, we went into the _Mug of Cider_ for a
snack. Ten or a dozen old men sat without, though the air was so nipping
that they must have bin starved. Each one was holding a great pewter
tankard, and they were roaring out at the top of their voices—
“_The Lord’s my shepherd, I’ll not fear._”
Each one went his own way and made his own tune, and I thought how
angered Mister Beguildy would be if he could hear ’em making such an
untuneful sound, for he was very particular over his row of flints, and
when he struck them he was troubled if they didna strike the note true.
But when we were come by these old ancients, every one held his mug
where it was, and stopped in his singing, and so sat with his mouth open
and his eyes fast on me. They were like those new-fangled mommet-shows
with the little dolls that stop all together when the showman unhands
them. There they sat, with the inn behind them and the frosty sunshine
on their old, red, veiny faces, and a kind of frittened look. As we
passed the bench, every head of them came round slow, and the score or
so of eyes stared slantwise over the rims of their cups, as young owls
will stare and turn their heads, watching you over their feathers.
As we went through the dark doorway, with its door studded with nails
like a prison, and came into the inn parlour, where sat the more
genteel, I saw their looks fasten on me too, but more shyly. The farmers
and their ladies and two or three folk that had come by the early coach
and were baiting here, and the Squire’s son, who was a parson in
Silverton and was on the way home for Christmas and was taking some
refreshment because his nag had cast a shoe, all of them looked up,
quiet and careful but very curious, at me. All on a sudden I knew that
all these folk, the grand ones within and the old fellows without, were
staring at my hare-shotten lip. They were thinking, according to their
station and their learning—
“Here’s a queer outlandish creature!”
“This is a woman out of a show, sure to goodness!”
“Here be a wench turns into a hare by night.”
“Her’s a witch, an ugly, hare-shotten witch.”
Maybe in the tuthree times I’d come to Lullingford in the past they’d
stared so, but then I was but a child and didna see.
I could hear the old men without croaking like a lot of rooks, and one
said—
“Dunna drink while she’s by. It’ll p’ison yer innards.”