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CHAPTER II
THE PICNIC
'There, on a slope of orchard, Francis laid
A damask napkin, wrought with horse and hound;
Brought out a dusky loaf that smelt of home,
And, half-cut down, a pasty costly made,
Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret lay,
Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks
Imbedded and injellied; last, with these
A flask of cider from his father's vats,
Prime which I knew;--and so we sat and ate.'
TENNYSON.
No. 8 St. Oswald's Buildings was a roomy house, which owed its
cheapness to its situation, this being neither in the genteel nor the
busy part of Bexley. It was tall and red, and possessed a good many
rooms, and it looked out into a narrow street, the opposite side of
which consisted of the long wall of a brewery, which was joined
farther on to that of the stable-yard of the Fortinbras Arms, the
principal hotel, which had been much frequented in old posting days,
and therefore had offices on a large scale. Only their side, however,
was presented to St. Oswald's Buildings, the front, with its arched
'porte cochere,' being in the High Street, as it was still called,
though it was a good deal outshone by the newer part of the town.
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