After Sauntering
About A Little Time I Returned Home.
After dinner I went again
into the fair along with my wife; the stock business had long been
over, but I observed more stalls than in the morning, and a far
greater throng, for the country people for miles round had poured
into the little town.
By a stall on which were some poor legs and
shoulders of mutton I perceived the English butcher, whom the Welsh
one had attempted to slaughter. I recognised him by a patch which
he wore on his cheek. My wife and I went up and inquired how he
was. He said that he still felt poorly, but that he hoped he
should get round. I asked him if he remembered me; and received
for answer that he remembered having seen me when the examination
took place into "his matter." I then inquired what had become of
his antagonist and was told that he was in prison awaiting his
trial. I gathered from him that he was a native of the Southdown
country and a shepherd by profession; that he had been engaged by
the squire of Porkington in Shropshire to look after his sheep, and
that he had lived there a year or two, but becoming tired of his
situation he had come to Llangollen, where he had married a
Welshwoman and set up as a butcher. We told him that as he was our
countryman we should be happy to deal with him sometimes; he,
however, received the information with perfect apathy, never so
much as saying "thank you." He was a tall lanikin figure with a
pair of large, lack-lustre staring eyes, and upon the whole
appeared to be good for very little.
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