168 AMBLES OF A VOtMINIS 



They are but clumsy craft, for the most part, that 

 are moored along the grimy quays. The scar on the 

 battered bulwarks of the Happy go Lucky does, indeed, 

 seem in harmony with her name. But the Adventure 

 and the Active are a pair of heavy, sullen-looking 

 coasters, whose souls were never raised above the wish 

 to carry coals. But in the Armada days, when, in the 

 summer midnight, the beacons flared along the hills, 



" And as the stirring signal flew, 

 To north, to south, the muster grew 

 Round many a Men dip farm," 



on board the William no better craft perhaps than 

 these did forty bold companions put out to fight the 

 fleet of Spain. 



Even in Norman days Bridgwater was a place of 

 mark. The Domesday record places it in the domains 

 of Walter de Douai. " Walscinus," says the old survey, 

 " holds Brugie," perhaps " the bridge," for in later 

 documents the name appears as Bridge Walter, to dis- 

 tinguish it no doubt from another passage higher up the 

 stream Borough Bridge, near Athelney. It was there, 

 among the very earthworks that King Alfred raised, 

 that Goring had an outpost before the siege of Bridg- 

 water. 



That siege was perhaps the most prominent scene in 

 the last great struggle in the West, and the fall of the 

 town in the summer of 1645 was but one of many 

 disasters that, in that fatal year, befell the Royal arms. 

 The year after its surrender, the old fortress that for 

 four centuries had stood on the brink of the river was 



