LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 218, 19 February 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE NIGHT AFTER THE FAIR. " The end, of a feast is better than the beginning of a fray." Pitchcroft Fair is held on Pitchcroft Hill, which lies just at the edge of Pitchcroft Park. It was a great fair once, but has declined of late years; so that the respectable inhabitants of Pitchcroft—where villas are springing up and parks are being cut up into building-land- -are trying to put it down as a nuisance. It is still a great day for the country-eide, however; farmers, hinds, and servant -maids resort to it from far and near. It is a good pitch for itinerant vagabonds of all descriptions, and shows and whirligigs, and similar amusements, find there the opportunity for a good harvest. One fair day, a tall good-looking young fellow, dressed in a respectable velveteen suit, with a light straw hat on his head bound by a very faded blue ribbon, his face as brown as a nut, and his eyes of a steely blue, steady and clear, was making his way up the hill—a plump comely-looking young woman leaning on his arm, and a rosycheeked fat little boy, in a scarlet frock and big straw hat with faded blue feather, hanging to the young woman's skirt. These are Harry Smith, the keeper on the Pitchcroft estate, his wife, and boy. He is not one of your grand head-keepers, with a score or more of underlings, but a plain working keeper, under a plain old English squire, neither more or less. His wife Hannah was the daughter of one Ebenezer Brown, an elderly shoemaker, and also a local 'preacher of some little repute in the neighborhood. She had been thought by her father's friends to have demeaned herself sadly by marrying a godless gamekeeper, and the village saints looked coldly upon her in consequence, whilst her father came to see her stealthily, for he and his son-in-law had quarrelled fiercely, and young Smith had forbidden the old man to darken his doors any more. ' Yoxi won't stay long, Harry ?' said Hannah, looking up at him beseechingly with her soft brown eyes. 'You'll come back with me and Tommy dear, won't you ?' 'O, never fear,' carelessly; 'l'll have a turn at the knockemdowns, and one glass of ale in the booth, and then I'm your man.' Smith lounged indolently through the press and throng, clearing a path for himself and his belongings with easy insolent force. Presently he came to an open space close by the park-railings, where a brown-faced man had set up his knockemdowns. The heavy thud of the sticks as they struck against the canvas-screen, the provocative yells of the attendants, and the hoarse cries and laughter of the rustic patrons of the game—these noises and the whirr of the flying sticks struck terror into the heart of Master Tommy, and he began to roar lustily and to cling to his father's gaiters, as if to drag him from the scene of danger. ' Take the boy away, Nanny,' said Smith hastily. ' I hate to hear him roar like that; and just you hook it off home if you can't enjoy yourself and look pleasant.' Hannah took up the boy into her arms, trying to pacify him, and walked slowly

away with an air of resigned melancholy. She didn't go very far, however, but took her place on a little knoll that commanded a view of the fair and of the place where her husband was standing. Harry was an excellent shot, with steady hand and clear cold eye, and not only a good shot with the gun, but at quoits, at bowls, at skittles. Whatever required coolness and steadiness Harry excelled at. The knockemdowns had no chance with him. Every shot brought down a cocoa-nut—and even in their cheapest form, and in the most wholesale way, cocoa-nuts are not to be had for three a penny, which was the tariff of shots. After every batch of shots Harry would gather up his cocoa-nuts, and stalk off chuckling to the park railings, where he deposited his burden, and came back quietly and steadily, walking up and down for a while in front of his mark before he essayed to fire again. The gipsy-looking man almost foamed at the mouth with suppressed rage and indignation at finding himself thus hardly used; his bag of cocoa-nuts was almost empty, his pouch scantily replenished with coppers. At last he plucked up the sticks in a rage, bundled together his bats and the poor remains of his cocoa-nuts, and left the ground amid the jeers and laughter of the spectators. ' I'll see ye yet,' he shouted defiantly at Smith, ' at a game that ain't played so easy.' Harry, elated at having broken the bank, strolled away, escorted by a few friends, towards the drinking-booth, and here Hannah lost sight of him. She waited anxiously for a long time. He did not reappear. 'He won't come home now,' she said to herself, sighing bitterly, 'and Tommy wants his tea.' She must go home. At the outskirts of the fair her attention was attracted by certain familiar sounds ; a loud nasal voice reciting certain words, and then a peal of harmony. As a counterpoise to the evil influences of the fair, some good souls, her father at the head, had extemporised ft religions service. There they were, gathered in a little knot in the centre of a circle hard and irreverent; two or three resolute bony women with thick ankles, some thin-faced sallow men with long beards, about her father, a whitebearded benevolent-looking man, and they were singing a hymn with much unction. Dick, her brather, a fine-looking fieryspirited young fellow, in a white blouse, stood a little apart from the circle, as if half-ashamed of what was going on. Presently they all went down on their knees on the sward, holding by the handles of their umbrellas, and some fervent volunteer delivered a prayer. Whilst they are in this position a sudden rush was made by a party of young men who had just issued from the drinkingbooth ; joining hands, they parted the crowd before them, and rushed in upon the circle of worshippers, whom they scattered right and left. Hannah saw her father hustled to the ground; then her brother Dick, white with passion, stepped and delivered a blow at the ringleader of the disturbance. The blow went straight home, and the tall fellow bit the grass; the crowd parted on either side for an instant gathering in next moment on the man struck down ; in an instant Hannah recognised her husband's face as that of the fallen man.

He rose next minute and looked up with ferocious gleaming eyes. Hannah trembled. Dick was but a stripling, and muscle and sinew was undeveloped, whilst Harry was a sturdy son of Anak, built up of steel and iron-wire. But there was the chance that he would not find out who struck the blow. The joyful strains of the persecuted saints seon uprose from another part of the grounds and this time they met with no interruption. Harry, sobered by his fall, looked at his father and brother-in-law with dark suspicion, but he seemed to be uncertain of his man, and after glaring at the people in the newly-formed ring for several minutes, he strode hastily away. Hannah went home sorrowfully enough. Now that Harry had broken loose there was no saying where he would stop, and at such times her influence over him was altogether lost. She dreaded his home-coming, the strong unbridled man inflamed with drink, a very savage in his cups, although at other times he was good and kind, as far as in him lay. Before nightfall her father came in and seated himself weary on the settle in the huge open chimney. ' You musn't stay, father,' said Hannah, putting her arm round his neck. 'He might be home any minute.' 'Nay, he's fast enough,' said old Brown with a sigh : then after a pause : ' Did you hear of his upsetting God's servants this blessed day, he and a lot of wild young sinners ?' ' I saw it all, father,' said Hannah, 'and I grieved for you and Dick.' ' What ! did you see Dick ?' cried Ebenezer, with a momentary glow of pride ; ' ay, he smote the Philistine rarely ; but it was sinful too. I reproved him, Nanny. ' Turn thy other cheek, Dick,' I said to " the smiter.' But it's little use saying aught to Dick ;' with a sigh. ' But he's a fine lad, too, is Dick,' said Hannah, her face lighted up with sisterly pride. 'lf he were as good as he is bonny,' Ebenezer groaned and shook his head. ' That's what I have come to you about, Nanny—about Dick's goings-on. He's got into bad company, dear, and I fear he's going wrong altogether.' ' What sort of bad company, father ?' said Hannah with a blush. 'Do you mean girls, father ?' 'Not as I've found out yet,' said Ebenezer ; ' but bad young fellows from Hightown —sporting, poaching, godless men. There were a lot of them at the fair, and from what I overheard I fancy that some of them are urging Henry Smith to drink, and that they mean to sweep Squire Courthope's covers to-night.' ' But Dick isn't among 'em ?' said Hannah, half-crying. ' Why, father, if such a thing as that happened, Harry would lose his place and his character ; and then what would become of Tommy and me ?' Ebenezer shook his head mournfully. ' Eh,' he said, ' it's a bad job altogether, when it comes to the sinful pleasures of the world, and marrying them that minister unto them, a daughter of Zion in the tents of the Jebuzites.' ' Come, father,' said Hannah sharply, ' don't you make all the Squire's ridingboots? ay, and my lady's dancing-pumps too? So don't you say anything about Harry's trade. We're like to get a living, folk like us.' (To be continued.)