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.

The farmer's wife to whom Anne had arranged to carry the plums was known
among her acquaintances as a "worry." She had two daughters, one of whom
was delicate, and the farm was neither large nor productive. Her husband
also was reputed to be sting