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have to do something about his teeth, though; washing could wait an opportunity. Savages cleaned their teeth on bits of stick; he could not see himself performing with a bit of heather. It was altogether in a lighter mood that he arrived at the cottage.
    A woman, not very old but bent with rheumatism, opened the door to him. Warren asked for breakfast. 'I could do a pair of eggs an' a cup o' tea,' she said doubtfully. 'I haven't any baker's bread this time o' year. Ye'll have to have just what we have ourselves.'
    He sat at her kitchen table while she busied herself to get him breakfast. As he waited, he stuthed the map; he found that he was very near the Wall. Nordveast seemed to be the best direction if he wanted exercise; a track led up across the moor in the direction of Bellingham and the Cheviots. From the contours it appeared that that would give him all the exercise he wanted for a week. Or two.
    She brought him two fried eggs, a flat home-made loaf of brownish bread, butter and jam and a pot of strong tea. He ate ravenously at first but with a quickly fading appetite; it was all that he could do to get through the second egg. He had several cups of tea, however, and felt satisfied and well, ahhough he had not eaten very much.
    He lit a pipe, paid her the shilling that she asked him for the meal, and, as an afterthought, bought one of her flat and dirty-looking loaves for twopence. From the look of the map it seemed unlikely that he would find a restaurant for lunch; it would be better to take what food he could with him. He broke the loaf into two halves and put one in each pocket of his ulster. Then he set out along the track up on to the moor.
    He walked all day, striding along over the black sodden moors, his ulster pulled about his ears. It rained most of the day; a thin, persistent misty drizzle that cleared in the evening as he dropped down into Bellingham. All day he kept to a rough track that wound among the heather-covered hills, always in seeming danger of obliteration, never entirely disappearing. He was not hungry, rather curiously. He ate a few mouthfuls of his bread in the middle of the day; me remainder crumbled in the pockets of his ulster.
    He got to Bellingham at about five o'clock after walking for eight hours or so; he covered the last mile in semi-darkness. He was very weary physically, and that same weariness gave him an easy mind; he knew that if he got a decent bed he would sleep naturally that night. Moreover, he was far too tired to think, and that to him was relaxation and relief. He found an inn in the village, where they looked at him askance, wet and unshaven, dirty and with no luggage.
    'Aye,' said the landlord, 'we've got beds. Maybe you'll find the house a bit expensive. We charge ten shillings deposit for them as comes without bag or baggage.'
    'Seems reasonable enough,' said Warren. He produced his notecase and put down the money; the man's manner altered for the better.
    'We has to be careful,' he explained apologetically, 'or you'd be getting some queer company. I never see so many on the roads as there are this year.'
    'Out of a job?' asked Warren.
    'Aye, walking the roads. They say there's more work in the south these days, but I dunno. This is your room. I'll bring up some hot water in a minute.'
    He washed and went downstairs to a high tea of ham and eggs, and marmalade, and cherry cake. In the coffee room there was nothing to read but a few copies of the motoring journals of the previous summer, and a queer paper about cattle breeding that he could not understand. He was tired and disinclined to sit and gossip in,the bar with the landlord and his cronies. He went to bed at about half-past seven, leaving his ulster and suit to be dried before the kitchen fire.
    He slept in his underclothes, a thing he had not done since the War. It had the pleasure of novelty for him, brought back old times and made him feel a subaltern again. He slept soundly for about five hours, got up and