one of his Olympian compeers on an adventure.

A miry lane led us up from Quartes with its church and bickering
windmill. The hinds were trudging homewards from the fields. A brisk
little woman passed us by. She was seated across a donkey between a pair
of glittering milk-cans; and, as she went, she kicked jauntily with her
heels upon the donkey's side, and scattered shrill remarks among the
wayfarers. It was notable that none of the tired men took the trouble to
reply. Our conductor soon led us out of the lane and across country. The
sun had gone down, but the west in front of us was one lake of level
gold. The path wandered a while in the open, and then passed under a
trellis like a bower indefinitely prolonged. On either hand were shadowy
orchards; cottages lay low among the leaves, and sent their smoke to
heaven; every here and there, in an opening, appeared the great gold
face of the west.

I never saw the _Cigarette_ in such an idyllic frame of mind. He waxed
positively lyrical in praise of country scenes. I was little less
exhilarated myself; the mild air of the evening, the shadows, the rich
lights and the silence, made a symphonious accompaniment about our walk;
and we both determined to avoid towns for the future and sleep in
hamlets.

At last the path went between two houses, and turned the party out into
a wide muddy high-road, bordered, as far as the eye could reach on
either hand, by an unsightly village. The houses stood well back,
leaving a ribbon of waste land on either side of the road, where there
were stacks of firewood, carts, barrows, rubbish-heaps, and a little
doubtful grass. Away on the left, a gaunt tower stood in the middle of
the street. What it had been in past ages I know not: probably a hold in
time of war; but nowadays it bore an illegible dial-plate in its upper
parts, and near the bottom an iron letter-box.

The inn to which we had been recommended at Quartes was full, or else
the landlady did not like our looks. I ought to say, that with our long,
damp india-rubber bags, we presented rather a doubtful type of
civilization: like rag-and-bone men, the _Cigarette_ imagined. "These
gentlemen are pedlars?--_Ces messieurs sont des marchands?_"--asked the
landlady. And then, without waiting for an answer, which I suppose she
thought superfluous in so plain a case, recommended us to a butcher who
lived hard by the tower, and took in travellers to lodge.

Thither went we. But the butcher