mouldered; up I started to rub my eyes and stare about me upon the unfamiliar scene. Birds piped and chirped merrily amid the leaves a

nd, opening this, found it to contain a small loaf, three slices of bacon and a piece of cheese, to

NG

the Chequers at Tonbridge or from mostly any of the padding kind, since the high road is my home and has been long. I am glad you liked my verses, I have more I could have read you and I think better of yours than you think I thought, tho

iah J

ccasionally

cook same, eat hearty. You will find a fryin

my breakfast for the first time in my life and found it no great business, turning the rashers this way and that in the pan until what with their delectable sight and smell, my hunger grew to a voracious desire

ing thirst, I arose, minded to seek some means of assuaging this appetite. Thus, having scrubbed out the frying-pan with a handful of bracken, I restored it to the tree and set out. After some little while I came on a brook bubbling pleasantly amid mossy stones and yet, though it looked sweet and clean enough, I could not br

en I espied a small tavern bowered in trees some little distance along the road, very pleasant to see, and hasted thitherward accordingly. I was yet some distance away when I bec

p! Drunk me beer at one gullup so qu

se an answe

uck 'im! Gi'e 'un

re I beheld some half-dozen angry country-fellows grouped about a solitary individual who fronted them in very desperate and determined manner

the doorway, he flourished off his hat, a miserably sorry-looking object, and bowed profoundly. "Aha, Sir Oswald," quoth he, "you arrive most aptly-in the very nick, the moment, the absolu

ed man in gaiters and smock-frock, "in one gullup-so quick n

y drop-could have drunk more. Our fat and furious friend labours under a delusion, for t

is a chap as can't be no chap's friend! 'Ow about it, you chaps?" quoth he, appealing to his fellows. "Shall us let a chap

we'm wi' 'ee! Pitch 'im out

be the landlord, a gloomy being who d

do as ye will-only don't break

tleman committed the solecism complained of, it was, I am s

entleman in question. "And suffer me to add

tleman's polite bow, "I shall be happy to m

every eye was fixed on me in somewhat disconcert

sping shaven chin with tankard rim, "but if you could man

more beer for you-a

cried a voice. "The genelm

ir?" enquired the landlo

y can drink, for good-fellowship's

rd had just set before him and bow to me across the creamy foam. "Sir Oswald, your health!" said he. "And may heaven preserve you from these three fatal F's-fathers, friends and females!" Having said which, he drank thirstily and thereafter sat frowning down at his broken boots beneath the brim of his woebegone hat, apparently lost in bitter thought. And beholding him thus, h

g, "they brew uncommonly stron

sed his hands to quiver as he leaned. "I was thinking," I continued,

t cheese!" But as he spoke I noticed his neares

that telltale hand, "I myself should prefe

ly as if to himself-and

r eat ham, i

of 'am, I've as fine a gammon as was ever smoked, leastways so my missus do say, so if y

said I. Hereupon the down-at-heels gentleman shook his head, scowled

leasure in life

lean room with the ham and eggs smoking on a dish b

tising!" said I, tak

am a thief!" Here I let fall the knife. "Three nights since, sir," he continued in the same passionless voice, "I broke into a farmhouse and stole a loaf and a piece of cheese. I should have stolen mor

te something more substantial

p!" he exclaimed and sitting down, fell

ood ham!

o the viands, I troubled him with no further speech until, his plate empty,

e a little hoarse, "for-your hospitality

is not Oswa

your British rustic. And now," said he, with an expression half-whimsical, half-rueful, as he picked up his woebegone

s he stood mute a space, and very still, only he fumbled nervously with his hat and I

t had chanced in my reach-money-jewels-anything. I was mad and desperate with hunger. And yet many a poor rogue in the s

name was Anthony-well, if you are goi

rself-with me-in th

"because, in spite of every

ement, while I, having summoned the landlord, paid the reckoni