" Behind are "Methley," Lord Pollington, in a
broad-brimmed hat, and the booted leg of Kinglake, who modestly hid
his figure by a tree, but exposed his foot, of which he was very
proud. Of the other characters, "Our Lady of Bitterness" was Mrs.
Procter, "Carrigaholt" was Henry Stuart Burton of Carrigaholt,
County Clare. Here and there are allusions, obvious at the time,
now needing a scholiast, which have not in any of the reprints been
explained. In their ride through the Balkans they talked of old
Eton days. "We bullied Keate, and scoffed at Larrey Miller and
Okes; we rode along loudly laughing, and talked to the grave
Servian forest as though it were the Brocas clump." {9} Keate
requires no interpreter; Okes was an Eton tutor, afterwards Provost
of King's. Larrey or Laurie Miller was an old tailor in Keate's
Lane who used to sit on his open shop-board, facing the street, a
mark for the compliments of passing boys; as frolicsome youngsters
in the days of Addison and Steele, as High School lads in the days
of Walter Scott, were accustomed to "smoke the cobler." The Brocas
was a meadow sacred to badger-baiting and cat-hunts.
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