All the same, it was a very pleasant day, and they both enjoyed it much; it is doubtful if any one in the town or its environs enjoyed that holiday more than these two, who, from different reasons, had probably never had so real a holiday before. They wandered over the great open tract of land, meeting no one; once they came near enough to the seaward edge to see the distant shimmer of water; once they found themselves in the part where there has been some little attempt at cultivation, and small patches of potatoes struggle for life, and a little railway crosses the sandhills. Twice they came upon the road along which, on working days, the peasant women bring their fish to market in the town. But chiefly they kept to the small, dense woods, where the sunlight only splashed the ground; or to the open solitary spaces where the bees hummed in the wild thyme, and the butterflies chased each other over the low rose bushes. A good deal after mid-day, at a time dictated entirely by choice, and not custom, they made their way back to the beer garden. It was a very little place, scarcely worthy of the name; the smallest possible house, more like a barn than anything else, right in the shadow of the wood. The fare to be obtained was bad beer, excellent coffee, new bread, and old cheese; but it was enough, supplemented by the cakes bought yesterday in the town; Julia knew enough of the ways of the place to know one can bring one's own food to such places without giving offence. As in the morning, when they first passed it, there was no one about, every one had gone to the fair, except one taciturn old woman who brought the required things and then shut herself in the house. The meal was spread under the trees on a little green-painted table, with legs buried deep in sand; there were two high, straight chairs set up to the table, and a wooden footstool put by one for Julia, who, seeing it, said this was certainly a picnic, and it was really necessary to eat the _broodje_ in the correct picnic way. Rawson-Clew tried, with much gravity, but she laughed till the taciturn old woman looked out of window, and wondered who they were, and how they came to be here.