find it utterly silent and deserted; neither man, woman, nor child was
to be found in or about the place. With some difficulty we caught some
children, who were peering at us behind the wall of a neighbour's house,
and from these blubbering little animals, who I believe thought we were
going to make mince meat of them, we at length extracted the fact that
the people of the inn were gone off haymaking. This was really too bad,
for if they had only told us, we could have made our arrangements
accordingly, but here we were starving and not the remotest prospect of
supper. There was no use wasting unparliamentary language, so I began
foraging in all directions, while H---- busied himself in cutting up
wood to make a fire, a process not too easy with an uncommonly blunt
axe. My researches into the interior of the dwelling were not
encouraging; the fowl was not there, neither was the _paprika_. At
length I discovered some eggs and a chunk of stale bread stowed away in
a corner; there were a great many things in that corner, but "they were
not of my search"--ignorance is bliss.

H---- had done his duty by the fire; he had even persuaded the water to
boil, which I looked upon as the beginning of soup. Happily for us I had
my co-operative stores with me. From the depths of one of my saddle-bags
I drew out a small jar of Liebig's meat--a spoonful or two of this gave
quality to the soup. I added ten eggs and some small squares of bread,
flavouring the whole mess with a pinch of dried herbs, salt, and
pepper--all from "the stores." The result was a capital compound: in
fact I never tasted a better soup of its kind; we enjoyed it immensely.
We had barely finished when in came the woman of the house; she looked
very much surprised, grumbled at our making such a large fire, and made
no apology for her absence.

No one came in to clean and feed our horses, and though I offered a