2 70 Saddle and Sirloin. 



A view from the Abbey garth that morning was 

 full of seafaring and country life. The ashes were 

 just beginning to change in Barlow Hag, which made 

 up a dark green-and-yellow background for the Daisies 

 and the red Captain Shaftoes. Across the embank- 

 ment of the sluggish Ouse, where the eel-catchers are 

 ever bobbing, the tall spire of Hemingbrough stands 

 out against the sky, and we note the progress of a 

 barge, as it runs slowly up with the tide towards 

 Selby. A billy- boy, which turns out on further in- 

 spection to be the " Elizabeth and Anne," is busy, not 

 bringing gravel from Spurn Point this tide, but de- 

 livering its tons of linseed-cake from Hull, while 

 carts keep steadily arriving with their loads at the 

 potato " pies," which are being gradually built up on 

 the river side, ready for shipment to London. Two 

 troops of English and Irish females in every guise, 

 from sun hats to guano-bag skirts, take their allotted 

 furrows (which have been turned-up by a plough 

 without the coulter), working so jealousy against each 

 other, and so ready to raise the Sassenach and the 

 " St. George to the rescue" war cries, on the smallest 

 provocation, that we secretly admire the bailiff for 

 keeping resolutely, pitchfork in hand, between them. 



A reedy swamp, half under water, with snipes 

 skimming about it, showed the raw material from 

 which that preserve of Flukes and Princes had been 

 formed. It is only at the changes of the moon 

 that the sluice watcher can report that the fertilizing 

 muddy swell, full of clay, sand, and vegetable matter, 

 has come at last, and, with a ripple sometimes nearly 

 four feet high, has 



" like an eagre rode 

 In triumph o'er the tide." 



In rivers like the Thames, the Severn, and the Mersey, 

 the force of the stream prevents the tide from rolling 

 the warp back. The sluggishness of its current, and 



