I don’t know what sort of fun a jingling match is in general, but I thought this one much the slowest game I saw. The ring must have been forty yards across, or thereabouts, and there were only eight blindfolded men running after the bellman. To make it good fun, there should have been twenty-five or thirty at least. Then the bellman, who has his hands tied behind him, ought to have the bell tied round his neck, or somewhere where he can’t get at it to stop the ringing; but our bellman had the bell tied to his waistband behind, so that he could catch hold of it with his hands, and stop it when he was in danger. Then half the men could see, I’m sure, by the way they carried their heads up in the air, especially one gypsy, who, I think, won the prize at last. The men who couldn’t see were worth watching, for they kept catching and tumbling over one another. One time they made a rush to the rope, just where some of the young ladies were sitting, and, as nearly as could be, tumbled over among them. I thought there would have been a great scrambling and screaming; not a bit of it--they never flinched an inch, or made the least cry, and I was very proud to think they were my countrywomen. After the bellman had been caught about a minute, there was a great laugh at one of the blinded men, who made a rush, and caught a Committee-man, who was standing in the ring, in his arms. But on the whole, I thought the game a poor one, and was glad when it was over.
I hurried away directly after the jingling match, and went across the Castle, and out on to the down where the cart-horse race had been run to see the foot-races, which were run over the last half of the same course, on which ten good stiff sets of hurdles, at short distances apart, had been set up. I found a debate going on between the umpires and some of the men as to whether they were all to start together. The regular agricultural labourers were remonstrating as to some of the candidates.
“It bean’t narra mossel o’ use for we chaps to start along wi’ thay light-heeled gentry,” said one,--“Whoy, look ’ee here, zur’s one, and yander’s another, wi’ a kind o’ dancin’ pumps on, and that ’un at tother end wi’ a cricketin’ waistcut.”