Of sudden and portentous birth,
As if man fought upon the earth,
And fiends in upper air.

Oh! life and death were in the shout,
And triumph and despair."

But here we are in Smeaton itself-grass or a garden at every cottage. This village would make a capital health resort. We stop to water the horses, and though it is hardly ten o'clock I feel hungry already.

Clear of the village, and on and on. A nice old lady in spectacles tending cows and knitting, singing low to herself as she does so. An awful-looking old man, in awful-looking goggles, breaking stones by the roadside. I address the awful-looking old man.

"Awful-looking old man," I say, "did ever you hear of the Battle of the Standard?"

"Naa."

"Did you never hear or read that a battle was fought near this spot?"

The awful-looking old man scratched his head.

"Coome ta think on't noo, there was summut o' th' kind, but it's soome years agone. There war more 'n a hoondred cocks. A regular main as ye might call it."

I pass on and leave the old man muttering to himself. Pine-woods on our right mingling with the lighter green of the feathery larches. A thundercloud hanging over a town in the plains far away. A duckpond completely surrounded by trailing roses. Ducks in the pond all head down, tails and yellow feet up. Road suddenly becomes a lovers' lane, charmingly

pretty, and robins are singing in the copses. We are just five miles from Darlington.

We stable our horses at a roadside inn and Foley cooks the dinner.

How very handy sheets of paper come in! Look at that snow-white tablecloth-that is paper; so is the temporary crumb-cloth, and eke my table-napkin ; but in fifty other ways in a caravan paper is useful.

The dinner to-day is cold roast beef and floury new potatoes; add to this a delightful salad, and we have a menu a millionaire might not despise.

I write up my log while dinner is cooking, and after that meal has been discussed comes the hour for reading and siesta.

Now the horses are once more put to, and we start again for Darlington. We pass through the charming village of Croft; it lies on the banks of the Tees, and is a spa of some kind, and well worthy of being a better-frequented resort for the health or pleasure seeker.

The treescapes, the wood and water peeps, are fine just before you reach Darlington. This town itself is one of the prettiest in England. Fully as big but infinitely more beautiful even than Reading.

Wherever we stop we are surrounded by people, so we make haste to shake the dust of civilisation from our carriage-wheels, and are happy when we once more breathe country air, and see neither perambulators nor boarding-school girls.

At the top of a hill some two miles out of town we come upon a cosy wee hotel-the Harrogate Hill Hotel. "A've little convenience," says the landlord, in his

broad Durham brogue, "but A'll clear anoother stall, and A'll turn t'ould pony oot o' his. A'll mak' room."

And the Wanderer is steered up a narrow lane and safely landed in a tiny meadow, o'ergrown with rank green grass and docks and sheltered with fine elms and ashes. And here we lie to-night.

Supper will soon be ready. I shall have a ride on my tricycle; there is always something to see; then beds will be made, shutters put up. I will read and write, while Foley in his cabin will write up his roadlog, and by eleven every one on board will be wrapped, we hope, in dreamless slumber.

This then is a true and faithful account of one day in the life of a gentleman gipsy. Quiet and uneventful, but very pleasant, almost idyllic.

Do you care for the picture, reader?

"March! march! Ettrick and Teviotdale,

Why, my lads, dinna ye march forward in order?
March! march! Eskdale and Liddesdale,

All the blue bonnets are over the border.

Many a banner spread flutters above your head;

Many a crest that is famous in story;

Mount and make ready then,

Sons of the mountain glen :

Fight for your Queen, and the old Scottish glory!"

July 11th. SIX-MILES' drive, through some of the most charming scenery in England, brought us into Durham. The city looks very imposing from the hill-top; its noble old castle,

and grand yet solemn looking

cathedral. Eight hundred years of age! What a terrible story they could tell could those grey old piles but speak! It would be a very sad one to listen to. Perhaps they do talk to each other at the midnight hour, when the city is hushed and still.

It would take one a week, or even a fortnight, to

see all the sights about Durham; he would hardly in that time, methinks, be tired of the walks around the town and by the banks of the winding Weir.

It is a rolling country, a hilly land around here. The people, by the way, call those hills banks. We had a hard day. John's gloves were torn with the reins, for driving was no joke. I fear, however, the horses hardly enjoyed the scenery.

The streets in Durham are badly paved and dangerously steep. We did not dare to bring the Wanderer through, therefore, but made a sylvan détour and got on the north road again beyond.

If we reckoned upon encamping last night in a cosy meadow once more we were mistaken, we were glad to get standing room close to the road and behind a little public-house.

Miners going home from their work in the evening passed us in scores. I cannot say they look picturesque, but they are blithe and active, and would make capital soldiers. Their legs were bare from their knees downwards, their hats were skull-caps, and all visible flesh was as black almost as a nigger's.

Many of these miners, washed and dressed, returned to this public-house, drank and gambled till eleven, then went outside and fought cruelly.

The long rows of grey-slab houses one passes on leaving Durham by road do not look inviting. For miles we passed through a mining district, a kind of black country-a country, however, that would be pleasant enough, with its rolling hills, its fine trees and wild hedgerows, were it not for the dirt and squalor and poverty one sees signs of everywhere on