To Albert Erskine, Lowry claimed to have lifted this phrase "from a rather stupid story by J.C. Squire, chiefly about duck shooting, though also in relation to a fair" [SL, 115]. In Squire's ‘The Alibi’, in his collection of short stories Outside Eden [180], before Sir Henry Moorhouse discovers the body of his shooting companion, Henry Henderson: "A small foreboding gust of wind came over moor and marsh, and rattled the leaves of the forlorn trees on the high ridge behind him. It carried a sound with it, a dim sort of brazen music, faint bangs and cries. It was the fair." The detail first appeared in Chapter VII [UBC 30-6, 2], then Chapter VIII [UBC 30-9, 23]; it was going to be used, somewhere. Chris Ackerley Under The Volcano A Hypertextual Companion
Sir John Collings Squire (2 April 1884 – 20 December 1958) was a British poet, writer, historian, and influential literary editor of the post-World War I period. Read more on Wikipedia
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