Hodge and His Masters | Page 2

the spot been in the most crowded district of the busiest part of the
metropolis, where every inch of ground is worth an enormous sum, the
buildings could not have been more jammed together, nor the
inconvenience greater. Yet the little town was in the very midst of one
of the most purely agricultural counties, where land, to all appearance,
was plentiful, and where there was ample room and 'verge enough' to
build fifty such places. The pavement in front of the inn was barely
eighteen inches wide; two persons could not pass each other on it, nor
walk abreast. If a cart came along the roadway, and a trap had to go by
it, the foot-passengers had to squeeze up against the wall, lest the box
of the wheel projecting over the kerb should push them down. If a great
waggon came loaded with wool, the chances were whether a carriage
could pass it or not; as for a waggon-load of straw that projected from
the sides, nothing could get by, but all must wait--coroneted panel or
plain four-wheel--till the huge mass had rumbled and jolted into the
more open market-place.
But hard, indeed, must have been the flag-stones to withstand the wear
and tear of the endless iron-shod shoes that tramped to and fro these
mere ribbons of pavements. For, besides the through traffic out from
the market-place to the broad macadamised road that had taken the
place and the route of an ancient Roman road, there were the customers
to the shops that lined each side of the street. Into some of these you

stepped from the pavement down, as it were, into a cave, the level of
the shop being eight or ten inches below the street, while the first floor
projected over the pavement quite to the edge of the kerb. To enter
these shops it was necessary to stoop, and when you were inside there
was barely room to turn round. Other shops were, indeed, level with the
street; but you had to be careful, because the threshold was not flush
with the pavement, but rose a couple of inches and then fell again, a
very trap to the toe of the unwary. Many had no glass at all, but were
open, like a butcher's or fishmonger's. Those that had glass were so
restricted for space that, rich as they might be within in the good things
of the earth, they could make no 'display.' All the genius of a West-end
shopman could not have made an artistic arrangement in that narrow
space and in that bad light; for, though so small below, the houses rose
high, and the street being so narrow the sunshine rarely penetrated into
it.
But mean as a metropolitan shopman might have thought the spot, the
business done there was large, and, more than that, it was genuine. The
trade of a country market-town, especially when that market-town, like
Woolbury, dates from the earliest days of English history, is hereditary.
It flows to the same store and to the same shop year after year,
generation after generation, century after century. The farmer who
walks into the saddler's here goes in because his father went there
before him. His father went in because his father dealt there, and so on
farther back than memory can trace. It might almost be said that whole
villages go to particular shops. You may see the agricultural labourers'
wives, for instance, on a Saturday leave the village in a bevy of ten or a
dozen, and all march in to the same tradesman. Of course in these latter
days speculative men and 'co-operative' prices, industriously placarded,
have sapped and undermined this old-fashioned system. Yet even now
it retains sufficient hold to be a marked feature of country life. To the
through traffic, therefore, had to be added the steady flow of customers
to the shops.
On a market-day like this there is, of course, the incessant entry and
exit of carts, waggons, traps, gigs, four-wheels, and a large number of
private carriages. The number of private carriages is, indeed, very

remarkable, as also the succession of gentlemen on thoroughbred
horses--a proof of the number of resident gentry in the neighbourhood,
and of its general prosperity. Cart-horses furbished up for sale, with
straw-bound tails and glistening skins; 'baaing' flocks of sheep;
squeaking pigs; bullocks with their heads held ominously low, some
going, some returning, from the auction yard; shouting drovers; lads
rushing hither and thither; dogs barking; everything and everybody
crushing, jostling, pushing through the narrow street. An old shepherd,
who has done his master's business, comes along the pavement,
trudging thoughtful and slow, with ashen staff. One hand is in his
pocket, the elbow of the arm projecting; he is feeling a fourpenny-piece,
and deliberating at