CLEAR WATERS 



and tracks to new-comers bound for distant scenes. 

 One man is minus a stick ; the landlord produces one 

 in a moment. A lady, nay two or three, think they 

 would like a wallet to carry their etceteras in ; these 

 are produced ready washed and clean on the spot. An 

 absent-minded soul has left his waterproof at home ; 

 even for that a substitute is sure to be forthcoming. 

 As mine host turns indoors, having got most of his 

 guests safely away till tea-time, though there is always a 

 hot lunch for the stay-at-homes, he unfolds a crumpled 

 telegram just received and announces in a quite 

 cheery tone that seventy knights of Pythias or eighty 

 Oddfellows from Preston expect dinner at one o'clock. 

 And at that hour, if you are about, you will find him 

 in a hall built for the purpose, with his daughters in 

 the thick of the steaming fray and in his shirt sleeves, 

 slashing away at rounds of beef and legs of mutton, 

 just as if he had merely to send round to the butcher's 

 for them instead of being fifteen miles from anywhere 

 handing plates, giving directions, and armed with 

 a ready retort for the most waggish knight among 

 them. When the hotel guests collect again at after- 

 noon tea-time, there is no sign that our landlord or 

 his family have even seen a knight of Pythias or an 

 Oddfellow, much less been in the very vortex of eighty 

 uproarious and hungry ones. Everything goes like 

 clock-work. Howsoever late at night we may keep 

 our host up in the smoking-room telling stories of 

 foxes, hounds, and dalesmen, I am pretty sure to see 

 him from my bedroom window in the morning work- 

 ing with skill and knowledge among his flower-beds, 

 .or even cutting the lawn dewy as it always is with the 

 250 



