ou mean by all this?"

"I don't understand you," I answered.

"I speak plain English, don't I?" he said. "Wasn't it you that's been
trampling in my long grass, and building tents and what not on private
property? I'll learn you that I won't have no strangers in my meadows, I
can tell ye."

"I'm very sorry if I've done any harm," said I, "and I'm sure if--"

"_If_ you've done any harm!" shouted the farmer. "Look at all that long
grass trampled down all over the meadow."

"Yes," I interrupted, "but it was your bull which did that."

"He wouldn't have done it if you hadn't teased him," said the farmer
obstinately. "I saw one of you myself teasing him with a red rag and
making him furious. I'm not going to have any of it. Off you come with
me to the police station."

"No, no, I can't do that," I cried in alarm; "I have these children with
me."

"People shouldn't take children out if they can't do without getting
into mischief," grumbled the farmer. "No, you come along of me," and he
caught hold of my arm.

"I'll give you my card," I said, "and if you have any serious complaint
to make you can write to me."

"Aye, a likely story; and when I write to you, as likely as not I'll
find you've given me a wrong address."

"Come back with me then to the inn: they know me there and will tell you
whether or no the address is a correct one."

The old farmer was gradually persuaded to this course, though he
grumbled all the way there that I ought to be "locked up," while the
children, thoroughly subdued, walked in silence behind us.

"You'll have to pay a pretty penny for damages," said he warningly, when
he had satisfied himself at the inn that I was known as "a gentleman
who often drove over there in the summer, and always paid for what he
had."

I assured him that he should have what was just, and when he had gone I
ordered tea in the arbour at the end of the old-fashioned garden, and
over it we forgot the unfortunate, but exciting, termination to our
picnic.

We arrived home quite safely. Sure enough, a few days afterwards I
received a preposterous claim for damage to the farmer's grass, which I
left my solicitor to deal with; and more extraordinary still, I had a
claim from Messrs. Piggott & Son for damages to a tent, which they
"could not trace as having been hired to me, but which I must have hired
at some time or another, since it bore their name marked as they only
marked their tents let out on hire."

Thi