“A photographer,” I replied, humbly.
“I can’t tell wot ye means, sir. Can you tell wot the gemman means, ’Arry?”
“’Arry” was very fat and round, wore a cow-gown, and confronted a quart pot of ale.
I repeated the word to him thrice, but ’Arry shook his head. “I can’t catch it,” he said, “no ’ow.”
When I explained that I meant a man who took pictures with a black box,—
“Oh, now I knows,” said the landlord; “you means a pott-o-graffer.”
But the children here that came down from their fastnesses in the village above are angels compared to the Deddington roughs. I was so struck with the difference that I asked four or five to come right away into the pantry and look at the saloon.
It rained hard all the afternoon and night, the dark clouds lying low on the hills—real hills—that surrounded us, and quite obscuring our view.
’Twixt bath and breakfast this morning, I strolled down a tree-shaded lane; every field here is surrounded by hedges—not trimmed and disfigured—and trees, the latter growing also in the fields, and under them cows take shelter from sun or shower. How quiet and still it was, only the breeze in the elms, the cuckoo’s notes, and the murmur of the unseen cushat!
We are near the scene of the battle of Edgehill. For aught I know I may be sitting near a hero’s grave, or on it. The village can hardly, have altered since that grim fight; the houses look hundreds of years old. Yonder quaint stone manor, they tell me, has seen eight centuries go by.