BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. 



the approval of the cycHst club. In the even- 

 ing, when we wandered between the dense beech 

 and yew hedges of the garden, or sat in a 

 dark arbour and heard the cattle cropping the 

 dewy grass, the ineffable pastoralities of the 

 place made themselves felt. Children and dogs 

 were playing noisily on a hill opposite ; out in 

 the unseen hamlet behind a grove of pine-trees 

 there was now and then a distant snatch of voices 

 singing in harmony ; and garden perfumes, cooled 

 in night air, spoke of peace and of a hundred 

 sleeping roses. We forgot that our legs were 

 stiffening into acute angles, that our foreheads 

 had been phrenologically remodelled by horse-fly 

 bites, and that our house-shoes were circling round 

 Wales in a luggage-train. And that, I think, was 

 how I caught one of my very finest colds in my 

 head. 



