rder, if anything, than in common years;
and the fritillary, always a May flower, is painting the
water meadows at this moment in company with "the
blackthorn winter;" or rather is nearly over, whilst its
cousin german, the tulip, is scarcely showing for bloom in
the warmest exposures and most sheltered borders of the
garden.

In a word, it was that pleasant rarity a fine day; and it was also a day
of considerable stir, as I shall attempt to describe hereafter, in my
small territories.

In the street too, and in the house, there was as much noise and bustle
as one would well desire to hear in our village.

The first of May is Belford Great Fair, where horses and cows are sold,
and men meet gravely to transact grave business; and the second of May
is Belford Little Fair, where boys and girls of all ages, women and
children of all ranks, flock into the town, to buy ribbons and dolls and
balls and gingerbread, to eat cakes and suck oranges, to stare at the
shows, and gaze at the wild beasts, and to follow merrily the merry
business called pleasure.

Carts and carriages, horse-people and foot-people, were flocking to the
fair; unsold cows and horses, with their weary drivers, and labouring
men who, having made a night as well as a day of it, began to think
it time to find their way home, were coming from it; Punch was being
exhibited at one end of the street, a barrel-organ, surmounted by a most
accomplished monkey, was playing at the other; a half tipsy horse-dealer
was galloping up and down the road, showing off an unbroken forest pony,
who threatened every moment to throw him and break his neck; a hawker
was walking up the street crying Greenacre's last dying speech, who was
hanged that morning at Newgate, and as all the world knows, made none;
and the highway in front of our house was well nigh blocked up by three
or four carriages waiting for different sets of visiters, and by a
gang of gipsies who stood clustered round the gate, waiting with great
anxiety the issue of an investigation going on in the hall, where one
of their gang was under examination upon a question of stealing a goose.
Witnesses, constables, and other officials were loitering in the court,
and dogs were barking, women chattering, boys blowing horns, and babies
squalling through all. It was as pretty a scene of crowd and din and
bustle as one shall see in a summer's day. The fair itself was calm and
quiet in compari