e middle
of the field, and a little to the side of it a large crowd was
struggling for tickets at one of the wheeled houses in which the
acrobats live. I went round the tent in the hope of getting in by
some easier means, and found a door in the canvas, where a man was
calling out: 'Tickets, or money, this way,' and I passed in through
a long winding passage. It was some time after the hour named for
the show, but although the tent was almost filled there was no sign
of the performers; so I stood back in a corner and watched the crowd
coming in wet and dripping from the rain, which had turned to a
downpour. The tent was lighted by a few flaring gas-jets round the
central pole, with an opening above them, through which the rain
shot down in straight whistling lines. The top of the tent was
dripping and saturated, and the gas, shining sideways across, made
it glitter in many places with the brilliancy of golden silk. When a
sudden squall came with a rush from the narrow valleys behind the
town, the whole structure billowed, and flapped and strained, till
one waited every moment to see the canvas fall upon our heads. The
people, who looked strangely black and swarthy in the uncertain
light, were seated all round on three or four rows of raised wooden
seats, and many who were late were still crushing forward, and
standing in dense masses wherever there was room. At the entrance a
rather riotous crowd began to surge in so quickly that there was
some danger of the place being rushed. Word was sent across the
ring, and in a moment three or four of the women performers, with
long streaming ulsters buttoned over their tights, ran out from
behind the scenes and threw themselves into the crowd, forcing back
the wild hill-side people, fishwomen and drunken sailors, in an
extraordinary tumult of swearing, wrestling and laughter. These
women seemed to enjoy this part of their work, and shrieked with
amusement when two or three of them fell on some enormous farmer or
publican and nearly dragged him to the ground. Here and there among
the people I could see a little party of squireens and their
daughters, in the fashions of five years ago, trying, not always
successfully, to reach the shilling seats. The crowd was now so
thick I could see little more than the heads of the performers, who
had at last come into the ring, and many of the shorter women who
were near me must have seen nothing the whole evening, yet they
showed no sign of i