Page:The English Peasant.djvu/121

 Nevertheless, the bicycle roundabout affords plenty of fun. Little boys, and young damsels in all the ugly glories of modern female costume, seat themselves on chairs fixed on the roundabout, while young men mount the saddles, and work the bicycles with a will. Round flies the merry circle—old men and children, lads and lassies—while Jacko,the monkey, climbs the many-coloured pole in the centre, and, gravely seated on the cross-beam, surveys the crowd, and cynic-like, doubtless, cogitates on the weakness and folly of the human race. "There they go," thinks he, "madly pursuing a dream. One follows the other, and they please themselves with believing 'tis a splendid race, but they are no more racers than the old mill-horse; they career round the circle, only to end where they began."

But what are those two long funnels which stretch right athwart the centre of the market-place? In front of each is a screen ornamented with martial pictures depicting heroic deeds at Alma and Inkermann. In the centre of each screen a huge hole gapes, and around it a group of men and boys have gathered to spend hours in the slowest fun imaginable.

From time to time one challenges the other to a shot, and then receiving the gun from its fat, imperturbable owner, he fires it off down the tube. A loud click announces the arrival of the ball at the other end, when, if it has hit its aim, the marksman is entitled to a second shot. If not, the crowd wait stolidly until some one else is smitten with a desire to waste a penny. Thus it goes on for hours—click, click, a dull, monotonous game—but it pleases our rustic friends, and why should it displease us?

And now as evening advances the flaring little lights bring out all the latent beauties of the cheap toys and the still cheaper crockery. You see piles of hideous-looking ornaments, and wonder at the bad taste that can buy such rubbish and call it pretty.

From the village inn comes the sound of music, and, passing the door, all may see a rustic Adonis dancing a jig on the sanded floor to the squeaky notes of the village fiddler. Later on the merriment increases, but it is time for all right-minded people to go home.