A Shepherds Life | Page 9

them, too, on
the morrow. To set out betimes and overtake the early carriers' carts on
the road, each with its little cargo of packages and women with baskets
and an old man or two, to recognize acquaintances among those who sit
in front, and as I go on overtaking and passing carriers and the
half-gipsy, little "general dealer" in his dirty, ramshackle, little cart
drawn by a rough, fast-trotting pony, all of us intent on business and
pleasure, bound for Salisbury--the great market and emporium and
place of all delights for all the great Plain. I remember that on my very
last expedition, when I had come twelve miles in the rain and was
standing at a street corner, wet to the skin, waiting for my carrier, a
man in a hurry said to me, "I say, just keep an eye on my cart for a
minute or two while I run round to see somebody. I've got some fowls
in it, and if you see anyone come poking round just ask them what they
want--you can't trust every one. I'll be back in a minute." And he was

gone, and I was very pleased to watch his cart and fowls till he came
back.
Business is business and must be attended to, in fair or foul weather,
but for business with pleasure we prefer it fine on market-day. The one
great and chief pleasure, in which all participate, is just to be there, to
be in the crowd--a joyful occasion which gives a festive look to every
face. The mere sight of it exhilarates like wine. The numbers--the
people and the animals! The carriers' carts drawn up in rows on
rows--carriers from a hundred little villages on the Bourne, the Avon,
the Wylye, the Nadder, the Ebble, and from all over the Plain, each
bringing its little contingent. Hundreds and hundreds more coming by
train; you see them pouring down Fisherton Street in a continuous
procession, all hurrying market-wards. And what a lively scene the
market presents now, full of cattle and sheep and pigs and crowds of
people standing round the shouting auctioneers! And horses, too, the
beribboned hacks, and ponderous draught horses with manes and tails
decorated with golden straw, thundering over the stone pavement as
they are trotted up and down! And what a profusion of fruit and
vegetables, fish and meat, and all kinds of provisions on the stalls,
where women with baskets on their arms are jostling and bargaining!
The Corn Exchange is like a huge beehive, humming with the noise of
talk, full of brown-faced farmers in their riding and driving clothes and
leggings, standing in knots or thrusting their hands into sacks of oats
and barley. You would think that all the farmers from all the Plain were
congregated there. There is a joyful contagion in it all. Even the
depressed young lover, the forlornest of beings, repairs his wasted
spirits and takes heart again. Why, if I've seen a girl with a pretty face
to-day I've seen a hundred--and more. And she thinks they be so few
she can treat me like that and barely give me a pleasant word in a
month! Let her come to Salisbury and see how many there be!
And so with every one in that vast assemblage--vast to the dweller in
the Plain. Each one is present as it were in two places, since each has in
his or her heart the constant image of home--the little, peaceful village
in the remote valley; of father and mother and neighbours and children,
in school just now, or at play, or home to dinner--home cares and
concerns and the business in Salisbury. The selling and buying; friends
and relations to visit or to meet in the market-place, and--how

often!--the sick one to be seen at the Infirmary. This home of the
injured and ailing, which is in the mind of so many of the people
gathered together, is indeed the cord that draws and binds the city and
the village closest together and makes the two like one.
That great, comely building of warm, red brick in Fisherton Street, set
well back so that you can see it as a whole, behind its cedar and
beech-trees--how familiar it is to the villagers! In numberless humble
homes, in hundreds of villages of the Plain, and all over the
surrounding country, the "Infirmary" is a name of the deepest meaning,
and a place of many gad and tender and beautiful associations. I heard
it spoken of in a manner which surprised me at first, for I know some of
the London poor and am accustomed to their attitude towards the
metropolitan hospitals. The Londoner uses them very freely; they have
come to be as necessary to him as the grocer's