Page:Fletcher--Where Highways Cross.djvu/22

 the cart-head, keeping his eye on her the while.

"Can you tell me where the Market-Place is?" she asked him. "I want to find somebody there, and I've never been here before."

"You can't miss it, missis," answered the waggoner. "Go straight down—there past the shows—that's the Corn-market—and through the Beast-fair—and there you are in the Market-Place."

The woman thanked him for his kindness, and went away in the direction of the noisy crowd. In the Corn-market every available inch of space was occupied by the shows and the people thronging about them. One side of the square was filled up by a menagerie of wild animals. On the platform outside it sat the bandsmen whose drums and trumpets made blaring music that failed to drown the roaring and shrill cries of the beasts inside the vans. The people crowded with a steady persistence up the steps leading to the entrance. Those who had already been inside and who had