vacant bedroom. We desired to see it and found it scrupulously clean if barely furnished. In addition to two beds it had two doors, and this, it was explained to us, was because one door opened into another bedroom to which the only access was through ours. Also that this room would be occupied by a lady. On being asked if we had any objection we naturally said that if the lady did not mind we could raise none. There were two of us. Still it was somewhat disconcerting to be aroused shortly after getting into bed by a knocking at the door, and on hastily getting out again and opening the door to find Madame (I call her madame though she was well on the sunny side of forty) with a candle in her hand asking for permission to go through our room. I am afraid that the scantiness of our attire and the desire to conceal our condition robbed our manner of granting her request of any dignity or grace. After all matters might have been worse. We might have had to go without food or shelter. And, at least, it rendered our appreciation the greater when we reached Caprile and found ourselves in comfortable inn and surrounded by some thirty or more vagrants like ourselves, chiefly of German and Austrian nationality.

The little village of Caprile is surrounded on all sides by mountains. There is a carriage road into it from Belluno, but in other directions it is reached by mountain passes. The one we came down by must in the spring have been merely a course for the melting snow it was so full of small boulders and rough stones. As a consequence all those we met at the hotel were, like ourselves, rücksackers, and had come by one or other of the passes which lead into Caprile, and had carried their luggage on their backs. Of the place itself nothing more need be said than that it is most romantically situated and a splendid centre for excursions on foot in all directions.

From Caprile we made the return journey over the Falzarrego Pass into Cortina. This rises 3,500 feet, and

from the summit gives some magnificent views, then drops down 3,000 feet into Cortina. Next day we crossed by the Tre Croci pass where in the restaurant at the top we were reminded of busy Switzerland, and lunched under the verandah in most civilised fashion.

It had been our habit during these hot days to rise early and get well on our way before noon; then to take off our rücksacks and lie down in some shady spot for two or three hours. On this day we did not discontinue our custom, though we were near a tourist centre, but stretched ourselves on a sloping bank near the roadside. It was not long before we heard footsteps approaching and then an Englishwoman's kindly voice saying, "Poor fellows, how tired they must be,' and the response came from an English Mr. Chadband, "Much more likely that they have had too much beer." My friend, who is almost a life-long teetotaller, was so irate at the imputation that he wanted to get up and give him a bit of his mind, but I pointed out that it did not really matter, for in England a dislike of beer was no true sign of a noble nature or of a charitable disposition. And of only four Englishmen that we had encountered on our tramp this was one of them, and possibly it never crossed his mind that the objects of his scorn might understand the language he spoke in or even happen to be his own countrymen.

We continued our journey, passing the finest of the mountain lakes-Lake Misurina-into Schluderbach, where at Ploner's Hotel we were able to eat an excellent dinner in company with some two hundred other hungry tourists.

The following day we spent eight hours going to the top of Monte Pian (7,000 feet) and back again to have one more far-reaching view of these strange fascinating Dolomitic peaks; to feel the exhilaration that comes with toiling into a rarer atmosphere; to experience the sense of loneliness and detachment which comes to one when from some lofty summit you look down and see how far away

and how insignificant seem man and his works; how the road he has made stretches like a thin ribbon through the valleys below, and the dwellings he inhabits look like the tiny toys of children.

In the evening we walked the eight miles separating us from Toblach, where we came once more into touch with the railway, and alas! to the end of a delightful holiday tramp.

I

By W. V. BURGESS.

MUST confess that the old toll-house used to interest me more than almost any other building in Mereham. It was a sturdy-looking structure, low-roofed, thick-walled, and octagonal in shape this latter feature was doubtless intended to afford the toll-keeper a ready view along the four arms of the highways which at this point intersect each other. For the best part of a century, stray trails of ivy had been creeping at the base of the walls, but as if afraid of being caught peeping in at the windows, the plant had not yet grown beyond the first sills.

Whether I was mostly impressed by the age of the quaint toll-house, or its solidity, I need not now stay to enquire of this fact I am certain, that, I rarely passed by the old place without some speculation or another being stirred within me concerning its past history and associations. Though shorn of its one-time importance, and minus the white swinging gates it once controlled, there was, nevertheless, at the time of which I write, a lingering look about the building reminiscent of an aged veteran, one who still, maybe, retains his soldierly bearing, albeit, the campaigns in which he fought are well-nigh forgotten of the world.

I distinctly remember the days, far back though they seem, when tribute was exacted of all and sundry, save pedestrians, using the highroads which serve my native village. Among the last of their race, too, I can call to

mind old 'Lijah Noden and his wife, an ancient couple, childless and reputed "well off," being keepers of Mereham Toll-gates. To my youthful imagination this taciturn pair seemed to belong to a period as remote as that of the third Edward who first sanctioned the system of turnpike levies; whilst the board affixed to the front of the house, was as sacred a script to me as ever the Rosetta stone could have been to Eastern transcribers. Often have I stood open-eyed, and, it is to be feared, open-mouthed, vainly endeavouring to decipher the contents of the old weather-beaten sign: "For one ass so much, "for one horse" so much, and so on, for a score lines, the whole concluded with letters that burnt themselves into my hero-worshipping heart, to wit: "Elijah Noden, Collector."

Viewed in the halo of such a credential, the wheezy, spindle-shanked old toll-keeper became apotheosized, nay, he took precedence over the sexton himself, the being who commanded both my admiration and envy inasmuch as he was permitted, without let or hindrance, to dig holes in the churchyard and fill them up again.

I was but a child, as I have said, but I recollect, also, how that on one dull October morning, I noted a look of horror depicted on the faces of the villagers as they passed silently to and fro, or stood in whispering groups, at this cottage gate or that. Lack of response to an early drover's importunities, had led to the discovery that old Noden and his partner had been brutally murdered in the night, and the wealth they were supposed to possess stolen from its hiding.

For quite a score years after this tragic event no one could be found with sufficient hardihood to tenant the toll-house, or, if some unwary stranger were haply prevailed upon, he was soon hence again, frightened forth by sounds and movements, uncanny and fearsome. The noise of hurrying feet on the stairway, shooting of bolts, and smothered cries and groans, occurring in the dead of