ite edgings, hanging
like strings of flowers up the posts at each end;--and then what a
collection of luggies! the whole meal in the market-sacks on a Thursday
did not seem able to fill them;--and horn-spoons, green and black
freckled, with shanks clear as amber,--and timber caups,--and ivory egg-
cups of every pattern. Have a care of us! all the eggs in Smeaton dairy
might have found resting-places for their doups in a row. As for the
gingerbread, I shall not attempt a description. Sixpenny and shilling
cakes, in paper, tied with skinie; and roundabouts, and snaps, brown and
white quality, and parliaments, on stands covered with calendered linen,
clean from the fold. To pass it was just impossible; it set my teeth a-
watering, and I skirled like mad, until I had a gilded lady thrust into
my little nieve; the which, after admiring for a minute, I applied my
teeth to, and of the head I made no bones; so that in less than no time
she had vanished, petticoats and all, no trace of her being to the fore,
save and except long treacly daubs, extending east and west from ear to
ear, and north and south from cape neb of the nose to the extremity of
beardy-land.

But what, of all things, attracted my attention on that memorable day,
was the show of cows, sheep, and horses, mooing, baaing, and neighering;
and the race--that was best! Od, what a sight!--we were jammed in the
crowd of old wives, with their toys and shining ribands; and carter lads,
with their blue bonnets; and young wenches, carrying home their fairings
in napkins, as muckle as would hold their teeth going for a month;--there
scarcely could be much for love, when there was so much for the
stomach;--and men, with wooden legs, and brass virls at the end of them,
playing on the fiddle,--and a bear that roared, and danced on its hind
feet, with a muzzled mouth,--and Punch and Polly,--and puppie-shows, and
more than I can tell,--when up came the horses to the starting-post. I
shall never forget the bonny dresses of the riders. One had a napkin
tied round his head, with the flaps fleeing at his neck; and his coat-
tails were curled up into a big hump behind; it was so tight buttoned ye
would not think he could have breathed. His corduroy trowsers (such like
as I have often since made to growing callants) were tied round his
ankles with a string; and he had a rusty spur on one shoe, which I saw a
man take off to lend him. Save us! how he pulled the beast's head by