A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE COUNTRY. 169 



have left his distinction behind with his cavalry 

 regiment in Afghanistan ; it was once great. Now 

 a colourless, bald little gentleman, he starves in a 

 cottage near the Crossways, is very regular at Church 

 on Sunday mornings, and attempts small parochial 

 employments. As he stands by the red-mottled 

 pillar of painted granite, one can see beneath the 

 woful ragged shirt-cuff the end of a long purple scar 

 on the wrist, which he habitually tries to hide. The 

 Major is sufficiently distinguished without such a 

 decoration. 



At length we hear the band coming down Mill 

 Lane, and see the banners debouch into the High 

 Street, above a column of black-coated, billycock- 

 hatted men, solemnly marching in bright blue scarves 

 and tinsel regalia. On all sides streams the whole 

 feminine village, mothers and maids, with a score of 

 perambulators, and the school-children careering in 

 front. Halt is called before the Greyhound, and in a 

 few minutes the long assembly-room behind the inn 

 is full of perspiring brethren, scrambling into their 

 places at the tables, with thunder of bootsoles and a 

 Babel of that sad Cockney-Wealden mixture which is 

 now our main dialect. The subscriber guests take 

 their seats at a high table across the top of the room, 

 supporting the Rector in the Chair. The room is 



