went out three times, and the weather became more and more threatening, a girl with a red petticoat over her head appeared at the gate of the yard, and said to the smith:

‘The horse is gone away from ye.’

‘Where?’ exclaimed Flurry, springing to his feet.

‘I met him walking wesht the road there below, and when I thought to turn him he commenced to gallop.’

‘Pulled her head out of the headstall,’ said Flurry, after a rapid survey of the forge. ‘She’s near home by now.’

It was at this moment that the rain began; the situation could scarcely have been better stage-managed. After reviewing the position, Flurry and I decided that the only thing to do was to walk to a public-house a couple of miles farther on, feed there if possible, hire a car, and go home.

It was an uphill walk, with mild generous raindrops striking thicker and thicker on our faces; no one talked, and the grey clouds crowded up from behind the hills like billows of steam. Leigh Kelway bore it all with egregious resignation. I cannot pretend that I was at heart sympathetic, but by virtue of being his host I felt responsible for the breakdown, for his light suit, for everything, and divined his sentiment of horror at the first sight of the public-house.

It was a long, low cottage, with a line of dripping elm-trees overshadowing it; empty cars and carts round its door, and a babel from within made it evident that the racegoers were pursuing a gradual homeward route. The shop was crammed with steaming countrymen, whose loud brawling voices, all talking together, roused my English friend to his first remark since we had left the forge.

‘Surely, Yeates, we are not going into that place?’ he said severely; ‘those men are all drunk.’

‘Ah, nothing to signify!’ said Flurry, plunging in and driving his way through the throng like a plough. ‘Here, Mary Kate!’ he called to the girl behind the counter, ‘tell your mother we want some tea and bread and butter in the room inside.’

The smell of bad tobacco and split porter was choking; we worked our way through it after him towards the end of the shop, intersecting at every hand discussions about the races.

‘Tom was very nice. He spared his horse all along, and then he put into him—’ ‘Well, at Goggin’s corner the third horse was before the second, but he was goin’ wake in himself.’ ‘I tell ye the mare had the hind leg fasht in the fore.’ ‘Clancy was dipping in the saddle.’ ‘’Twas a dam nice race whatever—’

We gained the inner room at last, a cheerless apartment, adorned with sacred pictures, a sewing-machine, and an array of supplementary tumblers and wineglasses; but, at all events, we had it so far to ourselves. At intervals during the next half-hour Mary Kate burst in with cups and plates, cast them on the table and disappeared, but of food there was no sign. After a further period of starvation and of listening to the noise in the shop, Flurry made a sortie, and, after lengthy and unknown adventures, reappeared carrying a huge brown teapot, and driving before him Mary Kate with the remainder of the repast. The bread tasted of mice, the butter of turf-smoke, the tea of brown paper, but we had got past the critical stage. I had entered upon my third round of bread and butter when the door was flung open, and my valued acquaintance, Slipper, slightly advanced in liquor, presented himself to our gaze. His bandy legs sprawled consequentially, his nose was redder than a coal of fire, his prominent eyes rolled crookedly upon us, and his left hand swept behind him the attempt of Mary Kate to frustrate his entrance.

‘Good-evening to my vinerable friend, Mr. Flurry Knox!’ he began, in the voice of a town crier, ‘and to the Honourable Major Yeates, and the English gintleman!’