ng vapours close in the view on every side. The actual field
underfoot, the actual site of the fair, is visible, but the surrounding
valleys and the Downs beyond them are hidden with vast masses of grey
mist. For a moment, perhaps, a portion may lift as the breeze drives it
along, and the bold, sweeping curves of a distant hill appear, but
immediately the rain falls again and the outline vanishes. The glance
can only penetrate a few hundred yards; all beyond that becomes
indistinct, and some cattle standing higher up the hill are vague and
shadowy.

Like a dew, the thin rain deposits a layer of tiny globules on the coat;
the grass is white with them hurdles, flakes, everything is as it were
the eighth of an inch deep in water. Thus on the hillside, surrounded by
the clouds, the fair seems isolated and afar off. A great cart-horse is
being trotted out before the little street of booths to make him show
his paces; they flourish the first thing at hand--a pole with a red flag
at the end--and the huge frightened animal plunges hither and thither in
clumsy terror. You must look out for yourself and keep an eye over your
shoulder, except among the sheep-pens.

There are thousands of sheep, all standing with their heads uphill. At
the corner of each pen the shepherd plants his crook upright: some of
them have long brown handles, and these are of hazel with the bark on;
others are ash, and one of willow. At the corners, too, just outside,
the dogs are chained, and, in addition, there is a whole row of dogs
fastened to the tent pegs. The majority of the dogs thus collected
together from many miles of the Downs are either collies, or show a very
decided trace of the collie.

One old shepherd, an ancient of the ancients, grey and bent, has spent
so many years among his sheep that he has lost all notice and
observation--there is no "speculation in his eye" for anything but his
sheep. In his blue smock frock, with his brown umbrella, which he has
had no time or thought to open, he stands listening, all intent, to the
conversation of the gentlemen who are examining his pens. He leads a
young restless collie by a chain; the links are polished to a silvery
brightness by continual motion; the collie cannot keep still; now he
runs one side, now the other, bumping the old man, who is unconscious of
everything but the sheep.

At the verge of the pens there stand four oxen with their yokes, and the
long slender guiding-rod of hazel plac