28 BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. 



consecrate to domestic ceremonies, — funeral cards 

 and the plaster ornament of a wedding-cake 

 formed the chimney ornaments, — to the rare female 

 visitor, and to a vow that the windows should not 

 be opened. We cannot, however, look back other- 

 wise than with affection to the tea which presently 

 came to us, to the cream and the bread-and-butter, 

 and to the fact that it was the first and last " plain 

 tea" which Wales supplied us with at sixpence 

 each. 



The journey to Cannoffice was resumed with re- 

 luctance on our part and on the part of the Tom- 

 mies, who were beginning to think that the thing 

 was getting past a joke and looked horribly like 

 business. Our best sympathies were given to them 

 as we fought our way along the remainder of 

 that afternoon's sixteen miles, decimating use- 

 lessly the hungry host of horse-flies that every 

 hedge recruited, flying from them at a ludicrous 

 full gallop, waving them back with branches of 

 trees ; perhaps it would be truer to say that the 

 Tommies had our second-best sympathies. The 



