I have a very distinct recollection of that night, for two or three horses had a fancy for grazing close to my tent,—so close were they that at times it seemed as though they would bite my pillow. There was nothing for it but to drive them off. Scarcely, however, had I settled down again to sleep when the chump, chump of horses grazing quite close to my head again awakened me to full consciousness. I discovered next morning that these horses had somehow got loose, and visited more tents than mine during the night. I wondered whether the existence of a stack of prime hay at no great distance, having only a flimsy protecting rail, had suggested possibilities to the owners of these renegades. One man had thrown his boots at them, and found in the morning that one boot had gone into a ditch. Another—a man who slept in a small and rather “lightly sprung” caravan—told me he awoke some time in the night owing to some one shaking the van; half-awake, he asked what was the matter, but, as the only reply was an extra vigorous shake, he woke up properly and looked out, to find three loose horses around, one of which was using a back corner of his van as a scratching-post; thereupon he drove off all the horses in the direction of the haystack in the next field. I shrewdly suspect that although he omitted to mention it, he had an idea that the subsequent manœuvres of the horses would lead to an interesting situation between the owners of the horses and him of the haystack. With daylight upon the scene I saw the horses pulling out large mouthfuls of hay from the stack, and later, the wrathful owner with a pocket-book in hand—apparently assessing damages. It is a suggestive fact that the next and subsequent nights passed quietly, all the horses remaining properly tethered. Having arranged with Mr. Petulengro that I would look in and have tea on a certain evening if I did not run against him in the meantime, I set out from my tent early in the afternoon of the day appointed so that I could take the walk leisurely. Finding later I had gained time by cutting across hop fields that had been picked, and was likely to arrive at the neighbouring camp before I was due, I rested upon a wood pile and was thoroughly lazy for half an hour or so. Just before me was a wood of young oaks whose continuity was scarcely broken by an occasional stiffly erect pine, but which otherwise fell softly away to the valley below,—upon my right was a tall hedge of maple, whose foliage was beginning to take on an autumnal richness. The silence was almost complete, perfect it certainly was, for the twittering of tits overhead and the nearer music of grasshoppers seemed but to accentuate the general stillness. I scarcely know if I fell asleep, but I became suddenly conscious that the evening mist was rising and that I must bestir myself.