There was not one of us who did not carry away a kindly remembrance of the land and its people.

But in every country there are overbearing, swaggering folk, and even in quiet, sleepy Ashford we were plagued by them.

There was one young Kentish squire, Farley was his name, who had earned a reputation in the town as a bully and a roisterer.

He could not meet one of us without uttering insults not merely against the present French Government, which might have been excusable in an English patriot, but against France itself and all Frenchmen.

Often we were forced to be deaf in his presence, but at last his conduct became so intolerable that I determined to teach him a lesson.