our Legislators. Seeing that the flymen had
arranged a tariff that measured distances with sovereigns, and hours
with bank-notes, I determined to walk to the Long Valley, and my example
was largely followed. Smartly-gowned ladies, and men whose attire
suggested the shady side of Pall-Mall, dispensed with all conveyances,
and sturdily trudged to the review ground, to the intense disgust of the
cabmen, whose harvest could not have been particularly lucrative. The
only vehicles that we saw on the road were waggons filled with
country-folk, and harnessed to heavy lumbering cart-horses, that moved
very deliberately and slowly, and now and again a London coach. A
specimen of the last came up to me just as I was getting out of the
town--it was occupied by a company of ladies and gentlemen with an
up-all-night look about them. As a matter of fact, I believe it had
started shortly after midnight, or thereabouts. I recognised one of the
occupants, who, until he caught my eye, had seemed rather depressed, but
who, upon exchanging greetings with me, assumed a most jovial air, and
seemed quite to wake up. He subsequently told me that he had never
enjoyed himself so much. "Up over-night, you see, then a long drive in
the dawn and early morning, getting to Aldershot before the QUEEN.
Review, lunch, and home again." The last item, I fancy, must have been
rather an anti-climax, although my friend would not admit it. However, I
have a kind of instinct that should there be another big Review, he will
choose the rail in preference to the road.
As I passed the barracks I could not help admiring the waggery of the
Military Authorities in setting up placards requesting "the Public not
to walk on the grass." The light-hearted Authorities (it is scarcely
necessary to say to those who know the latent humour in the breasts of
the Head-quarters' Staff) had selected a site for these posters where no
grass would grow. From the hurry-skurry observable on all sides, I
gathered that the Procession was on its way--a supposition that was
turned into certainty by the boom of a Royal Salute. And yet I was miles
from my seat! There was only one thing to do--to force my way down a
road that had been closed since nine o'clock. The entrance to this
pathway was guarded by a mounted sentry. I approached him, and showed
him my pass, which made me free of all "camps and bivouacs." He
complained that he was not a "camp," but had nothing to urge in denial
when I in
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