BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. 173 



high in the governess-cart, and felt its reproof and 

 suitabihty for pulpit denunciation ; his cough as- 

 serted his wrongs indignantly outside, during an 

 otherwise unalloyed tea in the Grapes drawing- 

 room ; and his thoughts were, it was easy to 

 suppose, back in the brave old Druidic days, 

 when he would have driven forth to meet the 

 tourist with scythes shining on the splinter- bar 

 of the governess-cart, and discouraged his vicious 

 trifling by utilising him as a burnt-offering. 



He found, however, a poor nineteenth-century 

 revenge in obliging the black mare to consume, 

 at our expense, three feeds of corn. Such, at 

 least, was the astonishing item in the bill ; and, 

 in a temporary lapse from the austerity of the 

 sacerdotal mood, he stooped to a refection that 

 called itself tea, and, judging by its price, must 

 have been of considerable extent. 



