w or a yoke of oxen, whether to sell or buy, goes to
Brighton on Monday. There were a thousand or two of cattle in the
extensive pens belonging to the tavern-keeper, besides many that were
standing about. One could hardly stir a step without running upon the
horns of one dilemma or another, in the shape of ox, cow, bull, or ram.
The yeomen appeared to be more in their element than I have ever seen
them anywhere else, except, indeed, at labor;--more so than at
musterings and such gatherings of amusement. And yet this was a sort of
festal day, as well as a day of business. Most of the people were of a
bulky make, with much bone and muscle, and some good store of fat, as if
they had lived on flesh-diet;--with mottled faces too, hard and red,
like those of persons who adhered to the old fashion of spirit-drinking.
Great, round-paunched country squires were there too, sitting under the
porch of the tavern, or waddling about, whip in hand, discussing the
points of the cattle. There were also gentlemen-farmers, neatly, trimly,
and fashionably dressed, in handsome surtouts and trousers, strapped
under their boots. Yeomen, too, in their black or blue Sunday suits,
cut by country tailors, and awkwardly worn. Others (like myself) had on
the blue, stuff frocks which they wear in the fields, the most
comfortable garments that ever were invented. Country loafers were among
the throng,--men who looked wistfully at the liquors in the bar, and
waited for some friend to invite them to drink,--poor, shabby,
out-at-elbowed devils. Also, dandies from the city, corseted and
buckramed, who had come to see the humors of Brighton Fair. All these,
and other varieties of mankind, either thronged the spacious bar-room of
the hotel, drinking, smoking, talking, bargaining, or walked about among
the cattle-pens, looking with knowing eyes at the horned people. The
owners of the cattle stood near at hand, waiting for offers. There was
something indescribable in their aspect, that showed them to be the
owners, though they mixed among the crowd. The cattle, brought from a
hundred separate farms, or rather from a thousand, seemed to agree very
well together, not quarrelling in the least. They almost all had a
history, no doubt, if they could but have told it. The cows had each
given her milk to support families,--had roamed the pastures, and come
home to the barn-yard,--had been looked upon as a sort of member of the
domestic circle, and was known by a name