318 A MEDLEY OF SPORT 



" Holloa, old fellow, what is the matter now ? " 



" AMiat's the matter ! Did you ask, whafs the matter ? 



Oh, lud, what a lot of born fools there are about ! 



Didn't that imp of h 1 — where is the young scoundrel ? 



I'll thrash him within an inch of his life." 



" Oh, Tommy's half-way home by this. Take hold of 



the stock of my gun, B , and I will haul you out in a 



jifiy." 



B clutched hold of the gun, and with a " hauly- 



ho " I managed to pull him on to the bank, and had com- 

 menced to make a neat little speech to soothe his ruflOled 

 feelings, when he suddenly let go his grip and fell back 

 into the dyke again, "as neat as Bill Summer's owd cow." 

 But it were better that I should now drop the curtain over 

 that marshland scene. 



That same night a dilapidated old tumbril cart, 

 drawn by an angular shire mare, rising nineteen years, 

 might have been seen jolting across the Maplin sands 

 towards Wakering Stairs. Seated in the cart were three 

 men. The first, short and stout, garbed in a shooting 

 suit about five sizes too narrow, and six inches too long 

 for him, smoked in silence ; the second, a red-headed, 

 apple-faced little man, who amused himself by belabour- 

 ing his skittish steed and muttering something about 

 " Lunnoners and blazing turnovers " ; the third, the 

 writer of this sketch. 



" Hanged if I drive up to Shoeburyness Station in this 

 turn-out — I look quite fool enough already with these 

 clothes bursting at every seam and button ! " suddenly 



