Harry made good progress, and Reuben decided that he was to start his career at the October Fair. There had been a fiddler at the Fair for years, partly for the lasses and lads to dance to, partly for the less Bacchic entertainments of their elders. It was at the Fair that men took his measure, and engaged him accordingly for weddings and such festivals. Luck would have it that for the last two years there had been no official fiddler--old Abel Pinch having been seduced by a semi-urban show, which wandered round London, camping on waste grounds and commons. The musical element had been supplied by strays, and Reuben had no doubt but that he should now be able to instal his brother honourably as chief musician. He advertised him in the neighbourhood for some weeks beforehand, and gossip ran high. Condemnation of Backfield's ruthlessness in exploiting his brother was combined with a furtive admiration of his smartness as a business man. It was extraordinary how little he cared about "lowering himself," a vital matter with the other farmers of his position. Just as he had thought nothing of working his own farm instead of indulging in the dignity of hired labour, so he thought nothing of making money at Boarzell Fair with the gipsies and pikers. Naomi no longer protested. For one thing Harry seemed to like his fiddling, and was quite overjoyed at the prospect of playing at the Fair. Strangely enough, he remembered the Fair and its jollities, though he had forgotten all weightier matters of life and love. "Where shall I stand?--by the gipsies' tent?--or right forrard by the stalls? I'd like to stand by the stalls, and then maybe when I'm not fiddling they'll give me sweeties." "You must behave yourself," said Reuben, in the tones he would have used to a child--"you mustn't go vrothering people to give you sweeties." "I'll give you some sweeties, Harry," said Naomi. "Oh, will you?--Then I'll love you!" Naomi turned away with a shudder, her eyes full of inexpressible pain. Reuben looked after her as she went out of the room, then he took a couple of strides and caught her up in the passage. "It's I who'm täaking you to the Fair, remember," he said, his hand on her arm. "Oh, no ... I couldn't go to the Fair." "Nonsense--you're coming wud me." "Oh, Ben, don't make me go." It was the cry of her weakness to his purpose. "I shall mäake you ... dear." She flung herself from him, and ran upstairs. That night at supper she took no notice of him, talking garrulously all the time to Mrs. Backfield. But she went to the Fair.