HOLIDAY HUMOURS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12964, 18 November 1907, Page 5

HOLIDAY HUMOURS.

THE SPIDER'S WEB: A COUNTRY HOLIDAY EXPERIENCE. .Bt Katharixe Ttkan (Author of "Irish Fancies,'' Etc.) Once when we were younger than when we are now we were attracted by the idea of farmhouse lodgings. The difference between the thing seen by tlie mind's eye and the actual thing when it comes to be seen by the body's eye is usually very great, and I may say that the mind's eye scores every time. Tho male part of us, however, reported favourably on tho farm houso. It waa in an exquisite part of Surrey, a gabled oriel-windowed house sitting in its own grassy lawns and gardens. Also tho farmeress was reported as being very good-natured and devoted to children. She particularly wanted us for her tenants, because we happened to be the possessors of three young children. AWAY TO THE COUNTRY. We left town on a sweltering, fainting day of July, and it was a sheer delight to emerge presently, all rather pale and languid, at a wayside station in the very heart of greenness. The delicious road was fringed with exquisite woods, all open to the road, so that the tired lyondon eyes looked down alley after alley of soft, green, waving masses. A vehicle from the inn had come to fetch us to the farmhouse. It was a kind of waggonette from which to those seated in it, it was possible to see the side of the coachman's faco. We came to know that coachman very well afterwards, and we havo never called him anything but the "Humorist." Ho had'a singularly wide mouth at any time, but tho thing that struck us, tired as we were, was that his mouth was round to his ears on eithor side. It must have been really a long smile of intense enjoyment. As we passed the idyllic cottages, too, we noticed that the inhabitants came out and gazed after ns, usually with an air of commiseration. If it had been tho country of our birth we should have suspected something from the demeanour of the inhabitants, for half of them would havo clapped their hands on their knees and roared with laughter, and the other half would have been softly compassionating with —"Heaven help ye. ye don't know what v« are in for. at all at all. An' thim 'innicent childher too!" But in Surroy we did not recognise the signs and portents. FIRST FAULTS. It was delicious that first night to sleep in the deep country silence after a plain meal which we wero too happy to criticise. And as we had arrived at dusk the feminine part of us who is short-sighted had not discovered .hat sho had broken a large «P'dor« web covering the whole washstand. But indeed daylight revealed a room canopied with spider*' weba, not newly spun either, but full ofUst years skeleton flies. Although 1J« *»£" at the window and the ™* clean those spiders' webs gave one furiously to ?Mnk.' They wero ma week if we wanted bath*. Iho masculine part of ii*, who enjoys a situation of 1 the kind, insisted on \uroing nut the rubbish and having his bath. It was an ominous banning to our foii.llv anticipated idyllic summer. I Darius tlu. first few day*.the farmerI ,*s> h.lloivcl mc al»nt continually with '■ .! mind bent on conversation. .V, 1 •ua- eiifiaged in the composition ot a novel thi< was not desirable: but preIsentlv strained relations put an end

to what I should never have been able to end for myself. A QUESTION OF STORES. Tho arrangoment made was that we wero to provide our own food which tbo farmeress was to cook for us, it being underetood, of course, that anything tho farmhouse could supply should be supplied. We had brought down a large quantity of stores, pretty well sufficient for the two months we intended! to remain. But we had not included the farmhouse in our scheme. Tlie stores were put away in a cupboard in our sitting-room, tho fa«neress explaining that she always liked peoplo to keep their own things; it was more satisfactory to her not to have anything to do with them. There was no key to the cupboard, but that mattered less oa we are constitutionally incapable of locking up anything, and incurably trustful, to begin with, at least. There was such a quantity of stores that at first we did not miss what whs taken. But wo were only three days there when tho baker's book came itu Thero were our two selves, two nurses, and three very small children, tho eldest hardly emerged from tho age when one lives mainly on milk. From Friday evening to Monday morning we had apparently eaten twentyeight quartern loaves! The next thing was the farmery's bill. Five dozen of eegs a day and four gallons of milk had fallen to "our share, with other things in proportion. As for our own purchases from the butcher, a joint of meat never re-appear-ed on our table. The farmeress, when spoken to, wrung her hands and wept, said sho was poor, and appealed to us to pay. If she had kept up this attitude it might have been more difficult to deal with her; but 6he had the unhappy thought of calling in .ier hut-v----baud to threaten us that we must pay. That determined our attitude for us. These be sordid details, but they were the prelude to a lively time. We interviewed the baker whom we found a most sympathetic person. There was no doubt that the loaves had been supplied. He listened to our tale and then spoke out. THE BAKER'S WARNING. "I'm very sorry, sir,'' he said, 'but you see you've got into wot we about oil the -Spider's Web. Tho police ought to do something, so they did. W'y they lives on getting innocent people down 'ere from London, — wot we calls mugs, if you'll excoose mc, sir. They mugs can sometimes stand that 'orrid place, and the*e 'orrid thieving people a week: sometimes not so much. You 6CO, sir. people don't like c row. They goes out at the week's end and p<iys a month's money for going, and other mugs, I mean people, comes in, an' the sime thing r eppen*s with them. If you'll believe mc it goes on right through the summer. It keeps the country lively, there's no doubt of that. Some lerfs; but as I say, live and let live; 'toin't no use treating people that way, even if they are mugs,—l mean Londoners." His comely wife had come out from her parlour." a ™* w% * regarding us with bright-eyed curiosity. "You didn't tell the lady and gentleman, John, about those ladies. Poor souls, mv 'cart did bleed for them! Two elde"rly ladies they were and very delicate, and not much money to spare ns you could see. md yet ladies by the look of them. Well, like all the rest, they wanted to leave as soon as they found* o«fc they were in the Spider* Web, but bless you, that man 'Unt 'c wouldn't let them go, not unless they was to pay up a month, and they 'adn't been there above three diys. *E terrified them that much that the poor things locked theireelves up in their room, and after a day or two of it they slipped out of the window. Would you beiiove it. that there man 'Unt, 'o saw them going, and 'c fired off his old rusty gun after them. I thought they would have fiinted when they come in ore. poor things, and I let them 'aye a chair." A CRbsb? FACED. We listened to this recital uith in-

I t*rest. Th© masculine one of ns -who lia legal and loves a fight, brightened a-s the tale proceeded. ,r \Ve shan't go out at the week's •end," ho slid, "because we should hare no time to find another place. We shall 6t«y the month, and I am going to enjoy myself immensely." He did. Tho rest of that month is to mc like the memory of a high wind screaming in the rigging of a 6hip. Tlie farmeress was always scolding it the top of her roice. We would have none of Iter supplies. We supplied ourselves. I tremble when I think of ill the' tinnrd meat we ate during those weeks. We hod forth our despoiled stores—what was left of them. — ond we wrote on them legibly': "Please leave this; we like it." Di-y after day dishes were sent in only to be rejected. As each dish went out tfie farmeres* h.id hysterics in the very dirty back kitchen. Mr 'Unt, after consideration of the ma-«culine part of us, concluded that it wis too stiff a nut for him to crack, and left affairs to his better half. At night, after potations more or less deep, Mrs 'Unt fell into wilder hysterics and shrieked denunciations of us all over the house. The masculine part of us smiled and went on with the novel he was writing with groit spirit and force. __ He has often since regardi'd 31 rs Tnt ns a source of inspiration. A BATTLE A I/OUTRANTE. It was a battle a I'outrance between us and Mrs "Unt. she being resolved on her side to share in our supplies, we beinc equally resolved that she should nor. Wo distributed the remains of our meals between our own dog md the <log cf the house, against whTun we had no grudge. A greenhouse opened from our sitting-room. For some reason or other it was the ! only snot which Mrs Tnt ever washed. iShe took my toilet ammonia to do it, | and explained that the Duchess, who I was the landlady, never got farther then the greenhouse when 6he made her calls of inspection. Never shall I forget the days on which the greenhouse had been scrubbed, when it smelt sweetly of Laven- j der-Sconted Ammonia. The meal being I over tho plates wero put down to the dogs in tho greenhouse. One would have said the rascals had a special grudge against Mrs 'Unt from the way they played with tnat meat, dragging it from end to end over tho tiled floor. After ton minutes of it the greenhouse was like a skating rink; and when they had tired of their play, the dogs, with great industry, would dig out the geraniums and bury the meat in thenplaces. After a saturnalia of this kind the greenhouse was a sight to see, greasy from end to end, and scattered all over with what were once promising geraniums, while the two dogs tugged playfully at a bone, till a wellaimed missiles from Mrs 'Unt would put an end to the game. OUR FRTEN'D THE PTG. That, and tho "Pig in the Garden," wero the joys of our laborious days. The pig was an enormous sow who could destroy more garden produce in fivo minutes than any other creature I ever heard of. When the shriek of "Pig in the garden!' arose Mrs Unt flew here and there, screaming like a demented hen. it was a groat occasion. She always thought wo left the gate open, a thing we would have scorned. °The' day wo left-having emptied all our supe'rflous stores on to the lawn where Mrs 'Unt's hens and the dogs made short work of them-we were presented with an enormous bill for breakages. Mr 'Unt appeared on this occasion, and was employed, for at least half an bour previous to our going, in carrying down stairs from all soita of pEefvarious dilapidated, articles of household furniture which he said we had broken. It made a verj nretty collection on the lawn. \>e card afterwards that it had been a very valuable asset to the 'l-nta and E£ more than paid for its original Sst. However, the tables were turned now, for tho masculine and legal part of us threatened Mr .tnth w«ecution for keeping dangeroiis articles in the house, and the matter ended bj Mr 'Unt retiring to the cowshed, whence all tho screams of his wile could not dislodge him. AT PEACE IN THE INN. When at last the carriage rolled away, bearing us to a sweet haven of refuge in the village inn, I carried on mv knees the two halves of a broken pie-dish, which I had never beforo laid eyes on. Mrs 'Unt's voice, formulating new claims and hurling new insults, Wllowed us till we turned a corner ot the sweet greon lane. Tho Humourist s mouth was more than ever round by his ears; but this time wo were in the joke, and could grin too when we met our successors, two ladies, very 6raart in bo-poppied hat*, on their way to the Spiders Web. It exists no longer, else we should have felt bound to do something to save future victims. The Duchess, hearing something of the scandaLs of the Spider's Web, evicted her tenants, and that was tho end of it. But for justice sake the legal half thought the 'Unts should have a fright. Ho gathered together Mrs 'Unt's weekly bills, all receipted without a stamp. He wrote to the authorities asking what the penalty was in law, and received the reply that it was ten pounds for each omi.ssion. This letter ho sent to the 'Unts with a notification that he held tho receipts. During the next few weeks, some of tho iniquities of the 'Unts must have been atoned for.