xi LADY MAUD'S WALK 181 



What was I thinking about ? How odd 

 it is that I never can remember anything in 

 the country. Oh yes, it was the bowls. 

 They have certainly disappeared, and as 

 certainly I have not moved them, nor has 

 any one else. It seems almost as though 

 they have been spirited away. Can Lady 

 Maud have taken them, and if so, what can 

 she have wanted with them ? It must be 

 five centuries since her fair brow was wrinkled 

 over the problem, still unsolved by her sex, 

 as to what bias is and how you obtain the 

 benefit of it. I don't know either, but then 

 I am a dweller in cities, and cannot be 

 expected to know about rural pastimes. If 

 I lived permanently in the neighbourhood 

 of a bowling-green I think I would try to 

 find out. I daresay I am perpetrating a 

 historical crime in mentioning Lady Maud 

 and bowls in the same breath. Were they 

 invented in her day ? How helpless a 

 creature is man without his books ! But 

 they must have been, for what is it the 

 King of Hungary says when he is devising 

 schemes for his daughter's amusement ? 



An hundred knightes, truly tolde, 

 Shall play with bowles in alayes colde. 



