and solid and stolid and slow-witted, as the young of his
class commonly are, and will make a bulwark of the nation in course of
time, I should think; for England has to produce a few thousand such
square babies every year for use in the colonies and in the standing
army. Albert Edward has already a military gait, and when he has
acquired a habit of obedience at all comparable with his power of
command, he will be able to take up the white man's burden with
distinguished success. Meantime I can never look at him without
marvelling how the English climate can transmute bacon and eggs, tea and
the solid household loaf into such radiant roses and lilies as bloom upon
his cheeks and lips.

CHAPTER III

July 8th.

Thornycroft is by way of being a small poultry farm.

In reaching it from Barbury Green, you take the first left-hand road, go
till you drop, and there you are.

It reminds me of my "grandmother's farm at Older." Did you know the song
when you were a child?--

My grandmother had a very fine farm
'Way down in the fields of Older.
With a cluck-cluck here,
And a cluck-cluck there,
Here and there a cluck-cluck,
Cluck-cluck here and there,
Down in the fields at Older.

It goes on for ever by the simple subterfuge of changing a few words in
each verse.

My grandmother had a very fine farm
'Way down in the fields of Older.
With a quack-quack here,
And a quack-quack there,
Here and there a quack-quack,
Quack-quack here and there,
Down in the fields at Older.

This is followed by the gobble-gobble, moo-moo, baa-baa, etc., as long as
the laureate's imagination and the infant's breath hold good. The tune
is pretty, and I do not know, or did not, when I was young, a more
fascinating lyric.

{The sitting hens: p17.jpg}

Thornycroft House must have belonged to a country gentleman once upon a
time, or to more than one; men who built on a bit here and there once in
a hundred years, until finally we have this charmingly irregular and
dilapidated whole. You go up three steps into Mrs. Heaven's room, down
two into mine, while Phoebe's is up in a sort of turret with long, narrow
lattices opening into the creepers. There are crooked little
stair-cases, passages that branch off into other passages and lead
nowhere in particular; I can't think of a better house in which to play
hide and seek on a wet d