have conducted yourselves under arms' (so we
had—we had all presented arms when the
dook came on the ground), 'and I invite you
all to dinner this afternoon in a tent in my park;
and all those who have fathers, mothers, sisters,
or sweethearts, let them bring them with them.
Officers and men of the Royal Bucks Militia, I
wish you farewell and good appetite!'"

"Bravo!" said I.

"Ah, bravo, indeed!" said Bucks. "That
was acting like a king—and ay, he was a king!—
and we all went. Every man jack of us had as
much roast-beef and plum-pudding as he could
eat: good streaky beef, too, and jolly good
pudding, plenty of plums, and a quart of strong
ale—Burton—that would stand by itself; and
every one had a pound and a half of it to his
own cheek, besides a large three-corner cocked-
hat slice to take home for one's friend or
sweetheart. I took mine home to a sick
brother."

"Good," said I; "that showed the heart in
the right place, that did." Drummer's eyes
kindle at the memory of pudding—pudding
being a sort of divinity with boys. Then,
ashamed of being caught worshipping pudding,
he looked at his red-corded trousers, and
arranged his belt.

Bucks continued stormier than ever. "Well,
and every man of us militia had a sort of flower-
pot thing to put his grub in, and a cup—a new
tin cup to each one for his malt liquor."

"Much speaking?" I threw in.

"Lor" bless you!" said Bucks, "I should think
so toastesses and cheering and stamping. How
I got home to Bucks I don't know, but I did
it in time by zig-zagging all through Stowe
Park and the long avenue.

"Lor'! to hear the speech-making in the red-
striped tent and in the house, both at the same
time, two or three rising at once. It was
darned good fun, I can tell ye. (Slaps his
knee, the nap of which many thousand previous
slaps have altogether removed, and doubling up
with a colicky chuckle that was almost too much
for him, at which the limp, pale lady's-maid
smiled dolefully, and in a way that implied
smiles were irreligious, unbeseeming, and
ungenteel). "Speech-making! I should rather think
there was, and plenty of it, all under the flags,
in the marquis, as they called the tent set up
on purpose for us to dine in, near the Flaying
House, as it was called, where the deer killed in
the park used to be prepared; and every time a
toast was drunk the yeomanry guns fired three
times" (shakes his head)—"yes they did. Then
the dook gave the best men prizes for running
in sacks, grinning through a collar, shooting at
a target, dipping for sixpences in treacle, and all
sorts of pastime, that the gentry likes to see the
tenantry busy about in these gala days."

"That was doing it like a king," said I.

"What fun!" cried Drummer Tom.

"It was doing it like a king," said Bucks;
"and he wor a king: more than another dook
I know of was; he who was pelted with what I
should not like to mention" (dreadfully mysterious)
"in the streets of Buckingham, and he
then swore he would do for the place, and make
the grass grow in the streets."

"And so it did," 'said I; "when I last saw
it; it was fast asleep, was Buckingham, and
snoring."

"Yes, the dook he moved the 'sizes," said
Bucks, fiercely, "and all that, to Aylesbury, to
pay them out. Dear me, what a grand place
Stowe was in the old days! It was a reg'lar
little kingdom, was Stowe, shut in with a ring
fence, south front nine hundred and sixteen
feet from east to west—I've paced it a thousand
times—and massy stone lions, and Corinthian
statuaries, and all that, and picters, and hundreds
of weight of books, and water, and green
turf, and bushes, and a flight of thirty-one steps
from the entrance to the lawn. It wor beautiful.
You never clapped eyes on—no, that you
didn't——"

"I suppose you know Bucks well?" said I.

"Ah! that I do," said Bucks, "and enough,
too, Risborough, and Leighton Buzzard, and
Berkhampstead, and Wendover, and High
Wycombe (good ale there), and Beaconslield, and
Woburn, and Newport Pagnell. Bucks, too!
You should see the gilt swan in the Town-hall
how it used to shine on market days."

"What, after the fall of Stowe?" I inquired.

"No," said Bucks—"no, no, sur, long ago;
and I knows Olney too, well, that I do. I've been
watchman there, man and boy, thirty years.
You've heard of Muster Cowper, the poet?"

"Of course I have, and his Olney Hymns,
too," said I.

Bucks (enraptured) cried, "Yes, yes, and
Mrs. Unwin, and the pet hares, and all on 'em!
Well, I show gentlemen and ladies the house
and summer-house where he used to write, and
garden, and where the Throckmortons, who were
his friends, used to live. The Ouse, you know,
runs through Olney."

"It was a melancholy, dull place for a
melancholy man to go to," said I.

Bucks took no notice of this remark, but broke
fresh ground. "We have had a powerful lot of
fires," said he—"incendiary fires—in Olney: a
dozen cottages or more burnt down in a year or
two."

"That's a bad job," said Drummer Tom.

"It is a bad job," said Bucks. "How they
goes and breaks out I don't know, and nobody
nows; but we must try and get at the bottom
of it, we must. There is no ill-will between
master and men, not as I know of" (stops a
moment and slaps his knee)—"the whole thing is
a mystary, a perfect mystary. P'r'aps it's the
gipsies."

"You've seen hard work, I should say, to
judge by your face," said I.

"Ay! that I have, sir. I tell you what, sir,
I have stood at sheep-washing every day for
three weeks, from six in the morning till eight
at night, and hardly taken bit or sup from
week's end to week's end—hadn't taste for it—
nothing but drink for me then."

"Well, but one farmer's sheep would never