ay. We hailed it, of course, but the man was so sound
asleep that our hails were vain, and none of us thought soon enough
about springing like a flash to the horses' heads, though we all thought
of it directly the dray was out of sight.

[Illustration: "A DOG-CART WITH A YOUNG LADY IN IT"]

So we had to keep on sitting there by the dusty road, and more than one
pilgrim was heard to say it wished we had never come. Oswald was not one
of those who uttered this useless wish.

At last, just when despair was beginning to eat into the vital parts of
even Oswald, there was a quick tap-tapping of horses' feet on the road,
and a dog-cart came in sight with a lady in it all alone.

We hailed her like the desperate shipwrecked mariners in the long-boat
hail the passing sail.

She pulled up. She was not a very old lady--twenty-five we found out
afterwards her age was--and she looked jolly.

"Well," she said, "what's the matter?"

"It's this poor little boy," Dora said, pointing to the Dentist, who had
gone to sleep in the dry ditch with his mouth open as usual. "His feet
hurt him so, and will you give him a lift?"

"But why are you all rigged out like this?" asked the lady, looking at
our cockle-shells and sandals and things.

We told her.

"And how has he hurt his feet?" she asked.

And we told her that.

She looked very kind. "Poor little chap," she said. "Where do you want
to go?"

We told her that too. We had no concealments from this lady.

"Well," she said, "I have to go on to--what is its name?"

"Canterbury," said H. O.

"Well, yes, Canterbury," she said; "it's only about half a mile. I'll
take the poor little pilgrim--and, yes, the three girls. You boys must
walk. Then we'll have tea and see the sights, and I'll drive you
home--at least some of you. How will that do?"

We thanked her very much indeed, and said it would do very nicely.

Then we helped Denny into the cart, and the girls got up, and the red
wheels of the cart spun away through the dust.

"I wish it had been an omnibus the lady was driving," said H. O., "then
we could all have had a ride."

"Don't you be so discontented," Dicky said.

And Noel said:

"You ought to be jolly thankful you haven't got to carry Denny all the
way home on your back. You'd have had to if you'd been out alone with
him."

When we got to Canterbury it was much smaller than we expected, and the
cathedral not much bigger than the church that is next to the Moa