and impeded by bundles and purchases in both arms.  Here and there a younger woman, dressed in the fashion of the best shop in the town, with a basket of rather more elegant shape, went about her marketing with equal decision, if more fashion:  the wife of some tradesman who lived in one of the numerous new villas with small gardens increasing every year on the fringe of the old town, who still liked the stir of the market and a bargain, but whose chief reason for marketing herself would be given to a friend as, “you can’t trust those girls.  They’ll take anything that’s given ’em and pay double.”

Farmers with that curious planted-and-not-to-be-up-rooted air which distinguishes a man brought up to farming everywhere stood about the corners of the market in groups, or greeted friends on the steps and in the passages of the inns.  The cattle-market was on the outskirts of the town, and the business there was over early in the day.  For the rest of the day they exchanged and completed their bargains, or, supported by a friend and with an air of determination not to be cheated, entered the shops of hatters and tailors, or examined the bundles of canes and walking-sticks hanging by their heads at the shop door, fingering stuffs in the same manner as the women, but with a more helpless air, as if hoping that some good fortune beyond their own fingers would make clear to them the difference and wearing quality of each.

Older men, with the solidity of girth which successful farming produces, stood planted on the pavements with the air of spectators who enjoyed everything, being free from the embarrassment of the younger men, who found themselves after a week of solitude in the midst of a crowd of their fellow-creatures, who, all and any, might happen to look at one critically, giving rise to a red flush which in its turn might provoke the jokes of one’s companions; ordeals which made for many a young countryman a day of adventure and perspiring, but one to be recalled during the remainder of the week as a day about town spent suitably by a man of spirit.

In the market Anne was a woman reputed for the excellence of her butter.  She had even taken prizes at local cattle-shows.  She had an established stand at one of the covered stalls, and her regular customers appeared one by one as they were at liberty.  It was largely a matter of waiting through the morning till all had been supplied.  To-day she had placed mechanically in the cart a basket of Victoria plums, which had been ordered by the wife of a neighbouring farmer, and as she found her butter and chickens sold, and was about to collect her baskets together, she saw this, and remembered that one of the servants at that farm had sprained her wrist in lifting a cheese, so that the mistress, not having appeared earlier in the day, might be safely assumed not to be coming to the market.  Anne stowed her empty baskets under the stall of a woman who sold smallwares, and began to make her meagre purchases for the week.  Then she took her baskets and made for the yard of the inn behind the market-square, where she had left the pony and cart.