Boarzell Fair was in many ways a mark of the passage of the years and a commentary on history. Not only did the atmosphere and persons of it change very much[Pg 351] as the nineteenth century changed, but the side-shows were so many lights cast on popular opinion, politics, and progress.

For instance, in the year 1878, the Panorama which had started with the Battle of Trafalgar and the Royal Gardens of Vauxhall, now gave thrilling if belated episodes of the Siege of Paris, and a gorgeous picture of the Queen being declared Empress of India at Delhi. The merry-go round not only went by steam, but was accompanied by a steam organ playing "The Swell Commercial" and "Married to a Mermaid" unfalteringly from noon till night. In the shooting gallery men potted Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Dillon, and Charles Peace, instead of the Russian Czar or Nana Sahib of their youth, or the hated Boney of their fathers. It all moved with the times, and yet remained four or five years behind them. One came in contact with movements which had just ebbed from the country, waves that had rolled back everywhere except in these lonely rural districts where interests and hatreds came later and lingered longer than in more accessible parts.

The population had altered too. Old Gideon Teazel had died some years ago, and his son Jasper was boss in his place. He was unlike his father both in character and physique, an undersized little ruffian, seasoned by a long career in horse-stealing, who beat his wife openly on the caravan steps, and boasted that he had landed more flats at thimble-rig than any thimble-engro in England. He would have cheated the shirt off any man at the Show, and established a sort of ascendancy through sheer dread of his cunning. The only man who did not fear him was Mexico Bill, a half-breed in charge of the cocoanut shie. Mexico Bill feared only the man who could knock him out, and that man had not yet been found in Boarzell Fair. As a matter of fact he was usually pretty genial and docile, but he had been wounded in the head by Indians long ago, and [Pg 352]sometimes went mad and ran amok. On these occasions the only thing to do was to trip him up, and enrol as many volunteers as possible to sit on him till he came to his senses.

There was no longer any fiddler at the Fair. Harry Backfield\'s successor had been a hurdy-gurdy which played dance music louder and more untiringly than any human arm could do. Dancing was still a vital part of the festivities, but it was more decorous than in the days when Reuben and Naomi had danced together to the tune of "Seth\'s House," or Robert and Bessie to "My Decided Decision." Only in the evening it became rowdy, when the sun had set and the mists had walled in the Show with nacreous battlements.

Joe and Caro joined the dancers on their arrival. It was the first time in her life that Caro had danced at the Fair, and the experience thrilled her as wonderfully as if it had not been just a link in the chain of a hundred new experiences. The hurdy-gurdy was playing "See me Dance the Polka," and off they skipped, to steps of their own, betraying in Dansay\'s case a hornpipe origin.

She saw people that she knew, but had no fear of betrayal, unless from Pete, who was, however, safe in the fighting-booth, now conveniently banished by public opinion to the outskirts of the Fair. Pete would "tell on" her, she knew, but no one else cared enough for Reuben to betray his daughter to him. She looked with kindly eyes on all the world as her accomplice—that all the world loves a lover is primarily the lover\'s point of view.

Besides, she was lost in the crowd which jigged and clumped around her, not even daunted by the unfamiliar waltz that the hurdy-gurdy struck up next. Nobody, except fanatics, bothered about steps, so one could dance to any tune.

In time Caro grew tired, and they wandered off to the shooting-gallery and the merry-go-round. They[Pg 353] patronised the cocoanut shie, and won a gilt saucer at the hoop-là stall. In the gipsy\'s tent Caro was told that she would ride in a carriage with a lord, and have six fine children, all boys, while Dansay was promi............