It quite enlivened us to see the old-fashioned
shows, the shooting-boxes, the exhibitions of monstrosities, with stalls
displaying all sorts of nuts, sweets, gingerbreads, and all the
paraphernalia that in those days comprised a country fair, and we should
have liked to stay at the inn and visit some of the shows which were
ranged in front of it and along the green patches of grass which lined
the Ashbourne road; but in the first place the inn was not available,
and in the second our twenty-five-mile average daily walk was too much
in arrears to admit of any further delay.
[Illustration: THE DOVE HOLES, DOVEDALE.]
All the shows and stalls were doing a roaring trade, and the naphtha
lamps with which they were lighted flared weirdly into the inky darkness
above. Had we been so minded, we might have turned aside and found
quarters at an inn bearing the odd sign of "The Silent Woman" (a woman
with her head cut off and tucked under her arm, similar to one nearer
home called the "Headless Woman"--in the latter case, however, the tall
figure of the woman was shown standing upright, without any visible
support, while her head was calmly resting on the ground--the idea
seeming to be that a woman could not be silent so long as her head was
on her body), but we felt that Ashbourne must be reached that night,
which now seemed blacker than ever after leaving the glaring lights in
the Fair.
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