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The queen and her two maidens and the three nuns, Elfric the abbot and his chaplain, Eadward and Alfred the athelings, and Alfred's tutor who was a churchman of Elfric's own monastery and myself. Then there were the servants, ten in all, who rode each leading a lightly-laden pack horse.

The trip was rather rough and uncomfortable, but most of the company made the best of it. Mlle. Frahender grew pale and ill, and her hair flew about in the most comic disarray. Cosily ensconced in a corner, Maurice sketched the various attitudes his companions assumed with every antic of the lightly-laden, wave-tossed Soulacroup. Hunched up on the seat, Esperance clung to the rigging.

But still deeper impression did the sequestered village make on me, with its open green and neat cottages, surrounded by pretty gardens; and its clear pond, with gravelly bed; and its neighbouring coppice; and its quiet church, with graceful spire; and the neat and unpretending parsonage; and the old minister, with thin cheeks and long white hair, and grave, yet kind loving countenance, to whom all smiled and courtesied or doffed their hats as he passed; and the long low school-house, with rosy, noisy children rushing out of it, and scattering here and there instantly to begin their play; and the buxom mothers and old dames coming out from their doors to watch them, or to chat with each other in the intervals of work; and the sheep on the sunny downs above; and the sparkling stream which came murmuring by, half overgrown with bushes, so that its pleasant sound alone showed its locality; and its deep pool, where the trout loved to lie; and the cattle in the green meadow, seeking for shade under the tall elms, or with lazy strokes of their tails whisking off the flies; and the boys whistling in the fields; and the men, with long white smocks and gay handkerchiefs worked in front, tending the plough or harrow, or driving the lightly-laden waggon or cart with sturdy well-fed horses.