46 RUNNING AWAY WITH CROPS. 



The numerous arches of this bridge are now occupied by 

 " ejected" families, and the traveller, as he crosses, is sur- 

 prised to find himself half stifled with the smoke of their 

 fires. One cannot help a feeling of dread that, in some 

 winter flood, the new course may be found an insufficient 

 outlet for the water, which would then overflow into its 

 ancient channel, and sweep every one of these poor 

 creatures away. 



In walking through the fields, an incident occurred 

 which may be worth mentioning. A man came breath- 

 lessly up to the gentleman with whom I was, and begged 

 his interposition as a magistrate to prevent bloodshed. 

 We immediately repaired to the scene of action, and 

 found about sixty people assembled to resist the armed 

 police and a bailiff, in an attempt they were about to 

 make to seize a rick of corn, which was alleged to have 

 been carried off from the land of a neighbouring pro- 

 prietor, where it had been under seizure for rent. The 

 people were in a state of great excitement, the police had 

 their guns cocked, and things looked very serious. On 

 inquiry, it appeared that the bailiff had no better proof 

 than a suspicion raised in his own mind, from the fact that 

 the party in whose yard the disputed grain was stacked 

 was the son-in-law of the party whose crop had been made 

 away with. As there were other ricks in the yard of 

 the same description, and several persons were willing 

 to swear that all these ricks had been in that yard before 

 the day on which the stolen crop was carried off, it became 

 a very difficult matter to say who was right. It was 

 clearly not to be wondered at that the whole village should 

 turn out to protect the crop of a friend, if they believed 



