s Albert's uncle brought
us a bag of from Maidstone when he went to fetch away the Roman pottery
we tried to sell the Antiquities with.

The battle was over, and peace raged among us as we sat in the sun on
the big wall and looked at the fields, all blue and swimming in the
heat.

We saw the tramp coming through the beetfield. He made a dusty blot on
the fair scene.

When he saw us he came close to the wall, and touched his cap, as I have
said, and remarked--

'Excuse me interrupting of your sports, young gentlemen and ladies, but
if you could so far oblige as to tell a labouring man the way to the
nearest pub. It's a dry day and no error.'

'The "Rose and Crown" is the best pub,' said Dicky, 'and the landlady is
a friend of ours. It's about a mile if you go by the field path.'

'Lor' love a duck!' said the tramp, 'a mile's a long way, and walking's
a dry job this 'ere weather.' We said we agreed with him.

'Upon my sacred,' said the tramp, 'if there was a pump handy I believe
I'd take a turn at it--I would indeed, so help me if I wouldn't! Though
water always upsets me and makes my 'and shaky.'

We had not cared much about tramps since the adventure of the villainous
sailor-man and the Tower of Mystery, but we had the dogs on the wall
with us (Lady was awfully difficult to get up, on account of her long
deer-hound legs), and the position was a strong one, and easy to defend.
Besides the tramp did not look like that bad sailor, nor talk like it.
And we considerably outnumbered the tramp, anyway.

Alice nudged Oswald and said something about Sir Philip Sidney and the
tramp's need being greater than his, so Oswald was obliged to go to the
hole in the top of the wall where we store provisions during sieges and
get out the bottle of ginger-beer which he had gone without when
the others had theirs so as to drink it when he got really thirsty.
Meanwhile Alice said--

'We've got some ginger-beer; my brother's getting it. I hope you won't
mind drinking out of our glass. We can't wash it, you know--unless we
rinse it out with a little ginger-beer.'

'Don't ye do it, miss,' he said eagerly; 'never waste good liquor on
washing.'

The glass was beside us on the wall. Oswald filled it with ginger-beer
and handed down the foaming tankard to the tramp. He had to lie on his
young stomach to do this.

The tramp was really quite polite--one of Nature's gentlemen, and a man
as well, we found out afterwards. He said--

'