o'clock; they all await the time of entrance
in a mighty army outside the camp gate. I
stand by the gate. The word is given. In
they march. Husbands and wives with
children—very old men, whose whole
faculties seem to have run into the one no-
faculty of deafness, leaning on younger arms
most willing to be burdened—raw, vegetable
faces, animal faces, human faces; in they pass.
I must go in with them. These are the
exhibitors; and all who have thoughts (some
evidently have none) are eager as exhibitors
at the Academy to go in soon, and see how
the placing committee may have dealt with
their productions. It is not, in this case,
only a desire to see how they will look. The
cottager who wants to know whether one of
his contributions has obtained a prize, must
now go in and see. If he knows his cabbages
again, he must look out for them and ascertain
whether they have been ticketed. It is,
however, a wise cottager who knows his own
cabbage; and, if he be puzzled to recognise
it, marked only with his number, he must
wait until the formal distribution of the
prizes takes place presently. I go in with
the second crowd, for whom the tents have
been vacated. We are all directed to flow in
one stream. The crush is immense, and some
desire to stop, some to go on; each enters
with a special object of his own. The hearts
of some are upon cabbages; the thoughts of
others rooted among carrots; others desire
to run over the beans, or to dilate on
pumpkins, or to find the wax and stick to it.

At the entrance, a square exhibitor, who
has made me acquainted with his own weight
by balancing himself upon my toes, inquires
of me, while I am dancing in my pumps:

"Which be the nighest way to the tearties,
Masser?"

He has evidently given hostages to fortune
in the shape of ten potatoes, which, from the
very bottom of my toes, I hope are not the
"best ten." The excitement in this crowd is
quite enlivening; there are no more
delightfuls and charmings—everybody has an
object in his, or her, or its eye. I say its, for
babies in arms enter; and the babies have
their eyes about them, and make sudden
plunges after anything attractive. One of
them, near to which I was fastened in a
stoppage, busied its fingers innocently in my
whiskers, which are of a winning colour. A
neat young maiden asks of a matronly
companion with more anxious timidity than
becomes sisterly interest, "Where be Will's
beans?" The matron does not know, but
Will is not far off—a frank young fellow in the
whitest smock.

"Will," says the matron, "which be thy
bearns? Has thee got anything?"

Will scrutinises many beans in many
dishes with the look of a Champollion at
work on half-obliterated hieroglyphics.

"If I only knowed my number, Sally,"
Will says, answering the girl who never asked
him any question. "If I only knowed my
number?"

"Yaw-haw, Will!" cries a crony from afar,
struggling against the stream to get at him.
"Thee basket's ticketed a prize." The
girl's cheeks are crimson in a minute. Oho!
methinks I know the basket, and who put
the vegetables in.

"Thee'll see the number on the basket,"
says the prudent matron; "then we'll know
the bearns." The maiden takes the hint and
pushes off to gain the information; Will
follows to help her; but the matron, like a
solid person, stays to see the solution of the
bean question before she moves another inch.

Excitement is great about the cucumbers;
two or three of that habitually awkward
family are continually hooking themselves
into garments, and being swept down by the
crowd. A highly critical and intelligent
lecturer in velveteen is pointing out, "Now
you see it isn't the biggest that gets the
prize; you see here's a little un, now."—
"But this un," says a sceptic, "as ha' got a
prize, is big, to be sure; but then he's old.
I dusna cut cowcomers a' that age." A
woman of fifty, with the happiness of fifteen
in her face, is telegraphing across the table to
another woman, and pointing to a cucumber.
"Has thee a prize?" says her neighbour.
"Yes, yes, my man—second prize;" and all
her fingers twitch and dance together with
the restlessness of sudden pleasure. The
perfect content with which failure is accepted
is extremely noticeable. There is no reserve
among the men in telling one another of
defeats, and no tone of mortification. The
prizes are, in fact, more numerous than the
exhibitors; and while some obtain honours
in half-a-dozen things, few cottagers of average
intelligence need be entirely plucked. Here
is a man with a shrewd Yankee look puzzling
all by himself over the cabbages. He don't
know his own cabbage, for there are fifty in a
row, all very much alike; all very fine. The
whole show of vegetables is indeed peculiarly
fine. I was introduced to the President just
now; and desiring to express my appreciation
of the quality of the garden produce, and to
show myself a little of a judge, lauded "a
splendid specimen of the squash or vegetable
marrow;" but, being told in bland accents
that it was very fine, but a pumpkin, I
declined committing myself any farther.

"I've a prize, Tom!" cries one acute man
to another, who belonged to the same parish.

"Han yer? so have I. What be yourn?"

"Taties."

"Tairties! Well, so be mine, tairties."

"Sure?"

"Shooer. I nawed my tairties by a slug
as narred one on em, so I had to gi' un a cut
near one or 'is eyes this marn, and so I
nawed un."

"Then you'n got the prize for taties, an
not I? Well, sure, I thowt em was my own.
Well, I'm glad you'n got him, anyhow."