witnessed in this quiet and thriving market
town. And it is sweet to us--yes, intensely sweet to leave, for a
moment, the hollow and slippery pathways of artificial life--of that
unfeeling, unholy and loathsome selfishness of heart, and soul, and
countenance, which marks as with a brand of infamy, the fictions of
fashionable and metropolitan society, where every person and profession
you meet, is a lie or a libel to be guarded against. Yes, it is pleasant
to us to leave all this, and to go back in imagination to a fair day in
the town of Balaghmore. Like an annual festival, it stole upon us with
many yearning wish, that time, at least for a month before, should be
annihilated. And when the fair morning came, what a drifting tide of
people, cows, sheep, horses, and pigs, passed on in the eager tumult
of business, before our eyes. The comfortable farmer in his best gray
frize; the young man in spruce corduroy breeches, home-made blue coat,
and bran new hat; the tidy maiden with neat bunch of yarn, spun by her
own fingers, giving sufficient proof to her bachelor that a young woman
of industrious habits uniformly makes the best wife for a poor man.
Various, indeed, were the classes that, in multitudinous groups, drifted
towards the fair green. The spruce, well-mounted horse-jockey, with
bottle-green coat closely buttoned, tight buckskin inexpressibles,
long-lashed hunting-whip, and top-boots; the drover on his plump hack,
pacing slowly after his fat beeves; the gentleman farmer, trundling
along in his gig, or trotting smartly on a bit of half-blood. Here go
a family group, the children with new hats and ruffles, grandfather a
little behind, with the hand of an own pet boy or a girl in his;
observe the joy of their faces; what complacent happiness on the ruddy
countenance of the healthy old man. The parents are also happy, but
betray the unconscious anxiety of those who love their children, and
are sensible of the serious duties inseparable from their condition;
the four little ones know not the cares of affection, and, consequently,
their looks are full of delight, eagerness, and curiosity. What a tide
of bewildered interrogatories does the fifth urchin pour upon the ear of
the old grandfather, who is foolish enough to stop the whole group,
in order to relate the precocious pertinency of some particular query.
There goes a snug farmer, his wife, and good-looking daughters, seated
upon a farm-car that is trussed with straw, c