Now he had not long to wait for his supper, for Prowse and Myers came in from the bar, and in a few moments other men arrived. They all carved for themselves huge segments of pie and rich slices of ham with knives that were whetted thin with use. Abner took his place among them. Nobody spoke to him, for he seemed to be the only stranger in the company. Many of them had not seen their friends for a whole year, since their last meeting in the same place. Twilight came, and the lamps were lit. The buyers sat on talking and drinking at the tables, running with one accord to door or window when the hoofs of some horse that had been brought to the fair for sale were heard trotting down the road. ‘Jenkins wants to sell that there cob to-night rather than take him to Bron,’ said Myers. ‘Never buy a horse you don’t see by daylight,’ Prowse replied, shaking his clay pipe to mark the words. ‘I don’t,’ said Myers, with a wink. ‘I heard a fellow from Brum offer him forty, and he’s a fool if he don’t take it.’ ‘There’s high prices going this fair,’ said Prowse. ‘There’s a great scarcity down our way. Jenkins is a chap as knows his business.’ ‘And so do I,’ said the Jew. ‘So do I.’ Abner, mildly exalted, walked out into the moonlit street. At the cottage doors and down by the bridge little groups of men in breeches and leggings stood talking together with low voices. From time to time the clatter of approaching hoofs was heard and the men stopped to listen. The village was full of a strange sense of expectancy. Abner wandered over the bridge and a little way upstream. In the hush of the night he heard a girl laughing. The sound disturbed him. He thought suddenly of Susie. The excitement of drink and a full stomach turned his thoughts in the direction of physical desire. He stopped and listened for the girl’s voice again, and wondered what man was with her.