Nevertheless, fairs were too important in the social economy to the convenience of the people to be wholly suspended. Therefore, on the appointed morning, early in September, a pleasant peal of five bells (not as yet silenced by force or law) gave due notice from the tower of Cheddar church that the day of fairings and gilt gingerbread had arrived; but although a certain quantity of booths had been erected, only one, and that but scantily supplied, was set apart for the profane display of those glittering temptations. Among the farm servants standing for hire, there were no stout young carters with their whips, no hale shepherds with their crooks and green sprigs in their hats; and though there was no lack of maids, yet, as they crowded together, they looked lonesome and sad, and their bonny brown hair was not tied up with ribands. The few children present were held fast by the hand, and led by their parents to see the common purchases made for the household; but even in these matters the traffic was dull. There were, indeed, a few cattle; a few pens of sheep; some piles of Cheddar and other Somersetshire cheese; a store of salted meats; one stall with fair garnishes of pewter for the cupboard; another with wooden bowls, and trenchers, and vessels for the dairy; and one great one, at which groceries, cloths, linens, and articles of hardware, were promiscuously set forth, and where the neighbouring housewives were wont to lay in their store of useful necessaries for the coming year. But now it was so uncertain what a day might bring forth, that not many cared to make their annual outlay. It might be supposed, that, in such unsettled times, mountebanks, tumblers, and conjurers could hardly reckon on a sufficient harvest of pence to find them in beer and shoe leather; but some of them still ventured their exhibitions, and with a ready wit practised boldly, wherever they came, upon the popular prejudices of the hour, and lent themselves to the crafty suggestions of the designing, who well knew that the vulgar mind may be artfully seduced to join in the ridicule of those very persons and things, which, in its better moments, it has respected.