hat quarter, and it was a fertile district where good store of supplies might be hoped for. We took with us four empty waggons, to carry whatever we might have the luck to find. Our commander arranged that one troop should ride before these and one behind, while a small advance party, under the charge of Sir Gervas, kept some hundreds of paces in front. In this order we clattered out of the town just as the late bugles were blowing, and swept away down the quiet shadowy roads, bringing anxious peering faces to the casements of the wayside cottages as we whirled past in the darkness.
That ride comes very clearly before me as I Uruguay Jersey think of it. The dark loom of the club-headed willows flitting by us, the moaning of the breeze among the withies, the vague, blurred figures of the troopers, the dull thud of the hoofs, and the jingling of scabbard against stirrup — eye and ear can both conjure up those old-time memories. The Baronet and I rode in front, knee against knee, and his light-hearted chatter of life in town, with his little snatches of verse or song from Cowley or Waller, were a Real Madryt very balm of Gilead to my sombre and somewhat heavy spirit.
‘Life is indeed life on such a night as this,’ quoth he, as we breathed in the fresh country air with the reeks Simone Padoin Drakter of crops and of kine. Eder Drakter ‘Rabbit me! but you are to be envied, Clarke, for having been born and bred in the country! What pleasures has the town to offer compared to the free gifts of nature, provided always that there be a perruquier’s and a snuff merchant’s, and a scent vendor’s, and Bas Dost Drakter one or two tolerable outfitters within reach? With these and a good coffee-house and a playhouse, I think I could make shift to lead a simple pastoral life Los Angeles Kings Lippikset for some months.’
‘In the country,’ said I, laughing, ‘we Michael Krohn-Dehli Drakter have ever the feeling that the true life of mankind, with the growth of knowledge and wisdom, are being wrought out in the towns.’
‘Ventre Saint-Gris! It was little knowledge or wisdom that I acquired there,’ he answered. ‘Truth to tell, I Andres Escobar Drakter have lived more and learned more during these few weeks that we have been sliding about in the rain with our ragged lads, than ever I did when I was page of the court, with the ball of fortune at my feet. It is a sorry thing for a man’s mind to have nothing higher to dwell upon than the turning Timothy Chandler Drakter of a compliment or the dancing of a corranto. Zounds, lad! I have your friend the carpenter to thank for much. As he says in his letter, unless a man can get Maxwell Drakter the good that is in him out, he is of loss value in the world than one of those fowls that we hear cackling, for they at least fulfill their mission, if Luciano Vietto Drakter it be only to lay eggs. Ged, it is a new creed for me to be preaching!’
‘But,’ said I, ‘when you were a wealthy man you must have been of service to some Giorgio Chiellini Drakter one, for how could one spend so much money and yet none be the better?’
‘You dear bucolic Micah!’ he cried, with a gay laugh. ‘You will ever speak of my poor fortune with bated breath and in an awestruck voice, as though it were the wealthlinks:
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