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 impatience. The performance was begun by the usual
dirty white horse, that was brought out and set to gallop round,
with a gaudy horse-woman on his back, who jumped through a hoop and
did the ordinary feats, the horse's hoofs splashing and possing all
the time in the green slush of the ring. An old door-mat was laid
down near the entrance for the performers, and as they came out in
turn they wiped the mud from their feet before they got up on their
horses. A little later the clown came out, to the great delight of
the people. He was followed by some gymnasts, and then the
horse-people came out again in different dress and make-up, and went
through their old turns once more. After that there was prolonged
fooling between the clown and the chief horseman, who made many
mediaeval jokes, that reminded me of little circuses on the outer
boulevards of Paris, and at last the horseman sang a song which won
great applause:

Here's to the man who kisses his wife,
And kisses his wife alone;
For there's many a man kissed another man's wife