The present explorer was one of those whom circumstances conspire to bring hither on Sunday, without the prospect of a return in the near future. He left a bicycle in the gatehouse and came across the meadow, where the base of the old Abbot’s market-cross stands with a sycamore growing in the empty socket of its shaft, to the wicket-gate. It being Sunday, he did not ring, but entered and sat down there in an ancient archway, in would-be peaceful and holy contemplation. What more Christian and Sabbath-like spirit than this would you have? Better, I take it, than the occupation of most of the villagers at that same moment, reading the Sunday newspapers, filled (after the manner of the Sunday newspaper) with the raked-together garbage of the last seven days. But this holy calm was not to continue. It was entirely owing to that bicycle. A strategist would have concealed it. Its presence under the archway of the gatehouse brought the peaceful interlude to an abrupt conclusion, as shall presently appear. Within the space of an all too short minute or two there appeared two little girls through the wicket-gate, coming home to the farmhouse from a walk, or from Sunday school, evidently excited by the sight of that machine, and by the very obvious deduction that the owner of it must be somewhere near. “And very pretty it was,” as Pepys might have put it, to see them questing about everywhere except in the right place, and not finding him, sitting there in the grateful shade quite close to them, and really easily to be seen, you know. And after all, it was the intruder himself who revealed his own presence, with the remark, “I suppose you are looking for the owner of that bicycle?” Whereupon they ran away and there presently entered upon the scene an angry woman, with inflamed visage and furious words; with offensive epithets about “trippers,” and the like. Outrageous! Now, to beat a leisurely and dignified retreat under such circumstances is difficult. You owe it to yourself not to be ignominiously routed in disorder, but to draw off your forces from the stricken field calmly and collectedly, inflicting losses upon the enemy, if possible. And then, you know, to be styled a “tripper,” and by a fat farmer-woman! Does that not demand retribution? Therefore, “Do you presume, woman, to call me a tripper?” seemed the best retort: effective and injurious, and at the same time restrained and dignified.