ly blazons the display
that Edward and I considered from the rickyard gate. Harold was not on
in this scene, being stretched upon the couch of pain: the special
disorder stomachic, as usual. The evening before, Edward, in a fit of
unwonted amiability, had deigned to carve me out a turnip lantern, an
art-and-craft he was peculiarly deft in; and Harold, as the interior of
the turnip flew out in scented fragments under the hollowing knife, had
eaten largely thereof: regarding all such jetsam as his special
perquisite. Now he was dreeing his weird, with such assistance as the
chemist could afford. But Edward and I, knowing that this particular
field was to be carried to-day, were revelling in the privilege of
riding in the empty waggons from the rickyard back to the sheaves,
whence we returned toilfully on foot, to career it again over the
billowy acres in these great galleys of a stubble sea. It was the
nearest approach to sailing that we inland urchins might compass: and
hence it ensued, that such stirring scenes as Sir Richard Grenville on
the _Revenge_, the smoke-wreathed Battle of the Nile, and the Death of
Nelson, had all been enacted in turn on these dusty quarter-decks, as
they swayed and bumped afield.

Another waggon had shot its load, and was jolting out through the
rickyard gate, as we swung ourselves in, shouting, over its tail Edward
was the first up, and, as I gained my feet, he clutched me in a
death-grapple. I was a privateersman, he proclaimed, and he the captain
of the British frigate _Terpsichore_, of--I forget the precise number of
guns. Edward always collared the best parts to himself; but I was
holding my own gallantly, when I suddenly discovered that the floor we
battled on was swarming with earwigs. Shrieking, I hurled free of him,
and rolled over the tail-board on to the stubble. Edward executed a
war-dance of triumph on the deck of the retreating galleon; but I cared
little for that. I knew _he_ knew that I wasn't afraid of him, but that
I was--and terribly--of earwigs: 'those mortal bugs o' the field.' So I
let him disappear, shouting lustily for all hands to repel boarders,
while I strolled inland, down the village.

There was a touch of adventure in the expedition. This was not our own
village, but a foreign one, distant at least a mile. One felt that sense
of mingled distinction and insecurity which is familiar to the
traveller: distinction, in that folk turned the head to note you
curiously