72 CHILDISH INCIDENT. 



Next to wading in water, comes, I think, the pastime 

 of trudging over bogs and fens, — ground intimately 

 allied to it, and which Colonel Hawker has made quite 

 classical. This is a sort of debateable land, and the 

 natural inhabitants of it reject you with most un- 

 equivocal signs of disapprobation. The red shank, the 

 pewet, the curlew, and all their allies, scream and dart 

 around you, inhospitable as they are, and tell you, as 

 plainly as bills can speak, to sheer off, and not invade 

 their premises. But we are a sort of Paul Pry, and 

 love to persist responding now and then with our double 

 barrel, which we more especially direct towards the 

 ruff, snipe, wild duck, and teal, — birds whose merit we 

 particularly appreciate. Thus we are, as may be seen, of 

 an amphibious nature, and respond to the fat knight's 

 description, when he compared Hostess Quickly to our 

 namesake. That this predilection for humidity is with 

 me an instinct, may be seen from the following briei 

 notice of my infant propensities. 



When I was an urchin I stole off, and wandered up 

 the stream that came winding through the verdant 

 meadows of my native valley, till I arrived at the foot 

 of the Castle Hill ; following the little path that dived 

 into a thicket, and wound round its base near the mar- 

 gin of the river: thence, amongst irregular clumps of 

 thorn bushes, holly trees, and other wild wood, stopping 

 a while to gather the cowslips and white violets that 

 dappled the sunny slopes, I pursued my way through a 

 tangled thicket, whose branches overhung the stream. 

 I remember even now that the sunbeam glittered on 

 the leaves, struck through the masses here and there, 



