Explore "Irresolute Catherine" by Violet Jacob on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
ON the second morning after Heber and Catherine disturbed the sleeping house, Talgwynne was also shaken out of its accustomed quiet by its half-yearly horse-fair. But for the usual market this was the little town's one explosion of business and pleasure; sheep and cattle changed hands every week within sound of the clock on the square church tower in larger or smaller quantities, but it was only in spring and autumn that mountain ponies, hackneys, and carthorses enlivened the place by their transitory presence.
On these occasions the west side of the town was by far its most cheerful point, for the road sprawled out into the country, and, for a flat quarter of a mile, was set apart as a show-ground by those who had horses to sell. A rough fringe of grass on either side of the way was the rallying place of the solid, who came to buy; the idle, who came to look on; and the light-minded, who would assemble to jeer and to goad unskilful horsemen with taunts and advice. After mid-day the roadsides would be strewn with hats, wisps of straw, broken clay pipes and the persons of those who had already succumbed to the pleasures of the fair.