24 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil. 



thudding, to be sure, as they stand shoulder deep in the water, ramming 

 huge stakes into the river, which stand in serried rows like a great cheveux 

 defrise! And now the morning breaks, and I see a phalanx of armed men 

 upon the other side ; men on horse and on foot. A cloud of arrows and 

 stones darkens the air ; the horsemen dash into the stream, and the footmen 

 foUow. A short fierce struggle takes place in the mid-stream. Javelin, 

 mace, and short sword ply a brief and bloody slaughter, and swaying heads 

 and shoulders meet, and oft go down and float away, and are lost together. 

 The wild half-armed defenders break and fly, and the trained legions of 

 Rome force the barriers, push up the opposite bank, and Cassivelaunus 

 himself, in his scythe-wheeled chariot, with his circlet of gold all awry, 

 grinding his teeth in baffled fury, and shaking his clenched hand at his 

 pursuers, dashes right into the open door of the "Ship," and shouts to Miss 

 Stone, in a hoarse voice, 



"A thimblefiil of gin just to settle them ingons." * 



Was that Bill Wisdom calling to little Billee? and wasn't I asleep at all? 

 No, I wasn't asleep, for there was my rod, and there was the lock and the 

 weir, and there was the bottom of a pint pot. I didn't see who was in front 



of it, but I expect it was BiU — he was generally there. And then That's 



pretty! — where have I heard that? It is a party singing an old, old 

 madrigal : 



" Down in a flowery rale, all on a summer morning, 

 Phillis I spied, fair Nature's self adorning." 



Dear me ! why that was the first thing I ever heard at Evans's, when I 

 went there bent on my first London dissipation, and I fell in love with it ; 

 and how sweetly and softly they sing it. It is like a spirit song, and the 

 weir seems to join in it as naturally as possible. Here they come — two 

 barges full, and quite a pic-nic ; and what old-fashioned barges ! Some of 

 the old City barges, I suppose ; and how odd ! What strange dresses, too ! 

 and that sweet sparkling woman, and the man with the pale, grave, 

 melancholy face, and dark pointed beard, with a broad lace collar and 



* Should this require explanation, it was just below Halliford, at Coway Stakes, where 

 Cassivelaunus was said to have opposed the passage of the Romans ; and the " Ship," kept by 

 Mr. Stone, at Halliford, is one of the best inns on the Thames. 



