The Splendid Fairing by Constance Holme — Read

All old and historical towns seem older and richer in meaning on some days than they do on others. But the old and the rich days are also the most aloof. The towns withdraw, as it were, to ponder on their past. By some magic of their own they eliminate all the latest features, such as a library, a garage, or a new town hall, and show you nothing but winding alleys filled with leaning walls and mossy roofs. The eye finds for itself with ease things which it has seen for a lifetime and yet never seen -- carved stone dates, colour-washed houses jutting out over worn pillars, grey, mullioned houses tucked away between the shops. The old pigments and figures stand out strangely on the well-known signs, and the old names of the inns make a new music in the ear. The mother-church by the river seems bowed to the earth with the weight of the prayers that cling to her arched roof. The flags in the chancel seem more fragile than they did last week. The whole spirit of the town sinks, as the eyelids of the old sink on a twilit afternoon.

Witham wore this air of detachment when Simon and Sarah came to it today, as if it held itself aloof from one of the busiest spectacles of the year. The long main street, rising and dipping, but otherwise running as if on a terrace cut in the side of the hill, was strung from end to end with the scattered units of the road. The ambling traffic blocked and dislocated itself with the automatic ease of a body of folk who are all acquainted with each other's ways. Groups clustered on the pavements, deep in talk, and overflowed carelessly into the street. Horses' heads came up over their shoulders and car wheels against their knees, without disturbing either their conversation or their nerves. Sheepdogs hung closely at their masters' heels, or slipped with a cocked eye between the hoofs. The shops were full, but those who wandered outside to wait could always find a friend to fill their time. Simon's personal cronies jerked their heads at him as he passed, and the busy matrons nodded a greeting as they hurried in front of the horse's nose.