ABSTRACT
Philip's reply to his instructor consisted in reading from one of the tombstones near him the following epitaph :
CHAPTER V I I I .
I T was a hot day, with so fierce a sun that every cab and cart that passed along the road by the heath drove through the pond on the top to freshen the horses. The gnats were flying about the donkey's ears, and they-poor brutes-were most of them lying down on the sandy ground, sleeping till their time of torment arrived. But though it was three o'clock, and broughams had already driven up to " Jack Straw's Castle,"and dinners had been ordered, yet no donkey riders appeared. All the proprietors were in a dreadful state of excitement at the prospect of so bad a day's work, and the men in flannel jackets, with their whips and sticks under their arms, were spread out along the road, watching like skirmishers for any one advancing.
