THE MODERN THAMES

I

The wild red deer can never again come down to drink at the Thames in the dusk of the evening as once they did. While modern civilisation endures, the larger fauna must necessarily be confined to parks or restrained to well-marked districts; but for that very reason the lesser creatures of the wood, the field, and the river should receive the more protection. If this applies to the secluded country, far from the stir of cities, still more does it apply to the neighbourhood of London. From a sportsman's point of view, or from that of a naturalist, the state of the river is one of chaos. There is no order. The Thames appears free even from the usual rules which are in force upon every highway. A man may not fire a gun within a certain distance of a road under a penalty—a law enacted for the safety of passengers, who were formerly endangered by persons shooting small birds along the hedges bordering roads. Nor may he shoot at all, not so much as fire off a pistol (as recently publicly proclaimed by the Metropolitan police to restrain the use of revolvers), without a licence. But on the river people do as they choose, and there does not seem to be any law at all—or at least there is no authority to enforce it, if it exists. Shooting from boats and from the towing-path is carried on in utter defiance of the licensing law, of the game law (as applicable to wild fowl), and of the safety of persons who may be passing. The moorhens are shot, the kingfishers have been nearly exterminated or driven away from some parts, the once common black-headed bunting is comparatively scarce in the more frequented reaches, and if there is nothing else to shoot at, then the swallows are slaughtered. Some have even taken to shooting at the rooks in the trees or fields by the river with small-bore rifles—a most dangerous thing to do. The result is that the osier-beds on the eyots and by the backwaters—the copses of the river—are almost devoid of life. A few moorhens creep under the aquatic grasses and conceal themselves beneath the bushes, water-voles hide among the flags, but the once extensive host of waterfowl and river life has been reduced to the smallest limits. Water-fowl cannot breed because they are shot on the nest, or their eggs taken. As for rarer birds, of course they have not the slightest chance. The fish have fared better because they have received the benefit of close seasons, enforced with more or less vigilance all along the river. They are also protected by regulations making it illegal to capture them except in a sportsmanlike manner; snatching, for instance, is unlawful. Riverside proprietors preserve some reaches, piscatorial societies preserve others, and the complaint indeed is that the rights of the public have been encroached upon. The too exclusive preservation of fish is in a measure responsible for the destruction of water-fowl, which are cleared off preserved places in order that they may not help themselves to fry or spawn. On the other hand, the societies may claim to have saved parts of the river from being entirely deprived of fish, for it is not long since it appeared as if the stream would be quite cleared out. Large quantities of fish have also been placed in the river taken from ponds and bodily transported to the Thames. So that upon the whole the fish have been well looked after of recent years.

The more striking of the aquatic plants—such as white water-lilies—have been much diminished in quantity by the constant plucking, and injury is said to have been done by careless navigation. In things of this kind a few persons can do a great deal of damage. Two or three men with guns, and indifferent to the interests of sport or natural history, at work every day, can clear a long stretch of river of waterfowl, by scaring if not by actually killing them. Imagine three or four such gentry allowed to wander at will in a large game preserve—in a week they would totally destroy it as a preserve. The river, after all, is but a narrow band as it were, and is easily commanded by a gun. So, too, with fish poachers; a very few men with nets can quickly empty a good piece of water: and flowers like water-lilies, which grow only in certain spots, are soon pulled or spoiled. This aspect of the matter—the immense mischief which can be effected by a very few persons—should be carefully borne in mind in framing any regulations. For the mischief done on the river is really the work of a small number, a mere fraction of the thousands of all classes who frequent it. Not one in a thousand probably perpetrates any intentional damage to fish, fowl, or flowers.

As the river above all things is, and ought to be, a place of recreation, care must be particularly taken that in restraining these practices the enjoyment of the many be not interfered with. The rational pleasure of 999 people ought not to be checked because the last of the thousand acts as a blackguard. This point, too, bears upon the question of steam-launches. A launch can pass as softly and quietly as a skiff floating with the stream. And there is a good deal to be said on the other side, for the puntsmen stick themselves very often in the way of every one else; and if you analyse fishing for minnows from a punt you will not find it a noble sport. A river like the Thames, belonging as it does—or as it ought—to a city like London, should be managed from the very broadest standpoint. There should be pleasure for all, and there certainly is no real difficulty in arranging matters to that end. The Thames should be like a great aquarium, in which a certain balance of life has to be kept up. When aquaria first came into favour such things as snails and weeds were excluded as eyesores and injurious. But it was soon discovered that the despised snails and weeds were absolutely necessary; an aquarium could not be maintained in health without them, and now the most perfect aquarium is the one in which the natural state is most completely copied. On the same principle it is evident that too exclusive preservation must be injurious to the true interests of the river. Fish enthusiasts, for instance, desire the extinction of water-fowl—there is not a single aquatic bird which they do not accuse of damage to fry, spawn, or full-grown fish; no, not one, from the heron down to the tiny grebe. They are nearly as bitter against animals, the poor water-vole (or water-rat) even is denounced and shot. Any one who chooses may watch the water-rat feeding on aquatic vegetation; never mind, shoot him because he's there. There is no other reason. Bitterest, harshest, most envenomed of all is the outcry and hunt directed against the otter. It is as if the otter were a wolf—as if he were as injurious as the mighty boar whom Meleager and his companions chased in the days of dim antiquity. What, then, has the otter done? Has he ravaged the fields? does he threaten the homesteads? is he at Temple Bar? are we to run, as the old song says, from the Dragon? The fact is, the ravages attributed to the otter are of a local character. They are chiefly committed in those places where fish are more or less confined. If you keep sheep close together in a pen the wolf who leaps the hurdles can kill the flock if he chooses. In narrow waters, and where fish are maintained in quantities out of proportion to extent, an otter can work doleful woe. That is to say, those who want too many fish are those who give the otter his opportunity.

In a great river like the Thames a few otters cannot do much or lasting injury except in particular places. The truth is, that the otter is an ornament to the river, and more worthy of preservation than any other creature. He is the last and largest of the wild creatures who once roamed so freely in the forests which enclosed Londinium, that fort in the woods and marshes—marshes which to this day, though drained and built over, enwrap the nineteenth-century city in thick mists. The red deer are gone, the boar is gone, the wolf necessarily destroyed—the red deer can never again drink at the Thames in the dusk of the evening while our civilisation endures. The otter alone remains—the wildest, the most thoroughly self-supporting of all living things left—a living link going back to the days of Cassivelaunus. London ought to take the greatest interest in the otters of its river. The shameless way in which every otter that dares to show itself is shot, trapped, beaten to death, and literally battered out of existence, should rouse the indignation of every sportsman and every lover of nature. The late Rev. John Russell, who, it will be admitted, was a true sportsman, walked three thousand miles to see an otter. That was a different spirit, was it not?

That is the spirit in which the otter in the Thames should be regarded. Those who offer money rewards for killing Thames otters ought to be looked on as those who would offer rewards for poisoning foxes in Leicestershire, I suppose we shall not see the ospreys again; but I should like to. Again, on the other side of the boundary, in the tidal waters, the same sort of ravenous destruction is carried on against everything that ventures up. A short time ago a porpoise came up to Mortlake; now, just think, a porpoise up from the great sea—that sea to which Londoners rush with such joy—past Gravesend, past Greenwich, past the Tower, under London Bridge, past Westminster and the Houses of Parliament, right up to Mortlake. It is really a wonderful thing that a denizen of the sea, so large and interesting as a porpoise, should come right through the vast City of London. In an aquarium, people would go to see it and admire it, and take their children to see it. What happened? Some one hastened out in a boat, armed with a gun or a rifle, and occupied himself with shooting at it. He did not succeed in killing it, but it was wounded. Some difference here to the spirit of John Russell. If I may be permitted to express an opinion, I think that there is not a single creature, from the sand-marten and the black-headed bunting to the broad-winged heron, from the water-vole to the otter, from the minnow on one side of the tidal boundary to the porpoise on the other—big and little, beasts and birds (of prey or not)—that should not be encouraged and protected on this beautiful river, morally the property of the greatest city in the world.

II

I looked forward to living by the river with delight, anticipating the long rows I should have past the green eyots and the old houses red-tiled among the trees. I should pause below the weir and listen to the pleasant roar, and watch the fisherman cast again and again with the "transcendent patience" of genius by which alone the Thames trout is captured. Twisting the end of a willow bough round my wrist I could moor myself and rest at ease, though the current roared under the skiff, fresh from the waterfall. A thousand thousand bubbles rising to the surface would whiten the stream—a thousand thousand succeeded by another thousand thousand—and still flowing, no multiple could express the endless number. That which flows continually by some sympathy is acceptable to the mind, as if thereby it realised its own existence without an end. Swallows would skim the water to and fro as yachts tack, the sandpiper would run along the strand, a black-headed bunting would perch upon the willow; perhaps, as the man of genius fishing and myself made no noise, a kingfisher might come, and we might see him take his prey.

Or I might quit hold of the osier, and, entering a shallow backwater, disturb shoals of roach playing where the water was transparent to the bottom, after their wont. Winding in and out like an Indian in his canoe, perhaps traces of an otter might be found—his kitchen modding—and in the sedges moorhens and wildfowl would hide from me. From its banks I should gather many a flower and notice many a plant, there would be, too, the beautiful water-lily. Or I should row on up the great stream by meadows full of golden buttercups, past fields crimson with trifolium or green with young wheat. Handsome sailing craft would come down spanking before the breeze, laden with bright girls—laughter on board, and love the golden fleece of their argosy.

I should converse with the ancient men of the ferries, and listen to their river lore; they would show me the mark to which the stream rose in the famous year of floods. On again to the cool hostelry whose sign was reflected in the water, where there would be a draught of fine ale for the heated and thirsty sculler. On again till steeple or tower rising over the trees marked my journey's end for the day, some old town where, after rest and refreshment, there would be a ruin or a timbered house to look at, where I should meet folk full of former days and quaint tales of yore. Thus to journey on from place to place would be the great charm of the river—travelling by water, not merely sculling to and fro, but really travelling. Upon a lake I could but row across and back again, and however lovely the scenery might be, still it would always be the same. But the Thames, upon the river I could really travel, day after day, from Teddington Lock upwards to Windsor, to Oxford, on to quiet Lechlade, or even farther deep into the meadows by Cricklade. Every hour there would be something interesting, all the freshwater life to study, the very barges would amuse me, and at last there would be the delicious ease of floating home carried by the stream, repassing all that had pleased before.

The time came. I lived by the river, not far from its widest reaches, before the stream meets its tide. I went to the eyot for a boat, and my difficulties began. The crowd of boats lashed to each other in strings ready for the hirer disconcerted me. There were so many I could not choose; the whole together looked like a broad raft. Others were hauled on the shore. Over on the eyot, a little island, there were more boats, boats launched, boats being launched, boats being carried by gentlemen in coloured flannels as carefully as mothers handle their youngest infants, boats covered in canvas mummy-cases, and dim boats under roofs, their sharp prows projecting like crocodiles' snouts. Tricksy outriggers, ready to upset on narrow keel, were held firmly for the sculler to step daintily into his place. A strong eight shot by up the stream, the men all pulling together as if they had been one animal. A strong sculler shot by down the stream, his giant arms bare and the muscles visible as they rose, knotting and unknotting with the stroke. Every one on the bank and eyot stopped to watch him—they knew him, he was training. How could an amateur venture out and make an exhibition of himself after such splendid rowing! Still it was noticeable that plenty of amateurs did venture out, till the waterway was almost concealed—boated over instead of bridged—and how they managed to escape locking their oars together, I could not understand.

I looked again at the boats. Some were outriggers. I could not get into an outrigger after seeing the great sculler. The rest were one and all after the same pattern, i.e. with the stern cushioned and prepared for a lady. Some were larger, and could carry three or four ladies, but they were all intended for the same purpose. If the sculler went out in such a boat by himself he must either sit too forward and so depress the stem and dig himself, as it were, into the water at each stroke, or he must sit too much to the rear and depress the stern, and row with the stem lifted up, sniffing the air. The whole crowd of boats on hire were exactly the same; in short, they were built for woman and not for man, for lovely woman to recline, parasol in one hand and tiller ropes in the other, while man—inferior man—pulled and pulled and pulled as an ox yoked to the plough. They could only be balanced by man and woman, that was the only way they could be trimmed on an even keel; they were like scales, in which the weight on one side must be counterpoised by a weight in the other. They were dead against bachelors. They belonged to woman, and she was absolute mistress of the river.

As I looked, the boats ground together a little, chafing, laughing at me, making game of me, asking distinctly what business a man had there without at least one companion in petticoats? My courage ebbed, and it was in a feeble voice that I inquired whether there was no such thing as a little skiff a fellow might paddle about in? No, nothing of the kind; would a canoe do? Somehow a canoe would not do. I never took kindly to canoes, excepting always the Canadian birch-bark pattern; evidently there was no boat for me. There was no place on the great river for an indolent, dreamy particle like myself, apt to drift up into nooks, and to spend much time absorbing those pleasures which enter by the exquisite sensitiveness of the eye—colour, and shade, and form, and the cadence of glittering ripple and moving leaf. You must be prepared to pull and push, and struggle for your existence on the river, as in the vast city hard by men push and crush for money. You must assert yourself, and insist upon having your share of the waterway; you must be perfectly convinced that yours is the very best style of rowing to be seen; every one ought to get out of your way. You must consult your own convenience only, and drive right into other people's boats, forcing them up into the willows, or against the islands. Never slip along the shore, or into quiet backwaters; always select the more frequented parts, not because you want to go there, but to make your presence known, and go amongst the crowd; and if a few sculls get broken, it only proves how very inferior and how very clumsy other people are. If you see another boat coming down stream, in the centre of the river with a broad space on either side for others to pass, at once head your own boat straight at her, and take possession of the way. Or, better still, never look ahead, but pull straight on, and let things happen as they may. Annoy everybody, and you are sure to be right, and to be respected; splash the ladies as you pass with a dexterous flip of the scull, and soak their summer costumes; it is capital sport, and they look so sulky—or is it contemptuous?

There was no such thing as a skiff in which one could quietly paddle about, or gently make way—mile after mile—up the beautiful stream. The boating throng grew thicker, and my courage less and less, till I desperately resorted to the ferry—at all events, I could be rowed over in the ferry-boat, that would be something; I should be on the water, after a fashion—and the ferryman would know a good deal. The burly ferryman cared nothing at all about the river, and merely answered "Yes," or "No;" he was full of the Derby and Sandown; didn't know about the fishing; supposed there were fish; didn't see 'em, nor eat 'em; want a punt? No. So he landed me, desolate and hopeless, on the opposite bank, and I began to understand how the souls felt after Charon had got them over. They could not have been more unhappy than I was on the towing-path, as the ferryboat receded and left me watching the continuous succession of boats passing up and down the river.

By-and-by an immense black hulk came drifting round the bend—an empty barge—almost broadside across the stream, for the current at the curve naturally carried it out from the shore. This huge helpless monster occupied the whole river, and had no idea where it was going, for it had no fins or sweeps to guide its course, and the rudder could only induce it to submit itself lengthways to the stream after the lapse of some time. The fairway of the river was entirely taken up by this irresponsible Frankenstein of the Thames, which some one had started, but which now did as it liked. Some of the small craft got up into the willows and waited; some seemed to narrowly escape being crushed against a wall on the opposite bank. The bright white sails of a yacht shook and quivered as its steersman tried all he knew to coax his vessel an inch more into the wind out of the monster's path. In vain! He had to drop down the stream, and lose what it had taken him half an hour's skill to gain. What a pleasing monster to meet in the narrow arches of a bridge! The man in charge leaned on the tiller, and placidly gazed at the wild efforts of some unskilful oarsmen to escape collision. In fact, the monster had charge of the man, and did as it liked with him.

Down the river they drifted together, Frankenstein swinging round and thrusting his blunt nose first this way and then that; down the river, blocking up the narrow passage by the eyot; stopping the traffic at the lock; out at last into the tidal stream, there to begin a fresh life of annoyance, and finally to endanger the good speed of many a fine three-master and ocean steamer off the docks. The Thames barge knows no law. No judge, no jury, no Palace of Justice, no Chancery, no appeal to the Lords has any terror for the monster barge. It drifts by the Houses of Parliament with no more respect than it shows for the lodge of the lock-keeper. It drifts by Royal Windsor and cares not. The guns of the Tower are of no account. There is nothing in the world so utterly free as this monster.

Often have I asked myself if the bargee at the tiller, now sucking at his short black pipe, now munching onions and cheese (the little onions he pitches on the lawns by the river side, there to take root and flourish)—if this amiable man has any notion of his own incomparable position. Just some inkling of the irony of the situation must, I fancy, now and then dimly dawn within his grimy brow. To see all these gentlemen shoved on one side; to be lying in the way of a splendid Australian clipper; to stop an incoming vessel, impatient for her berth; to swing, and sway, and roll as he goes; to bump the big ships, and force the little ones aside; to slip, and slide, and glide with the tide, ripples dancing under the prow, and be master of the world-famed Thames from source to mouth, is not this a joy for ever? Liberty is beyond price; now no one is really free unless he can crush his neighbour's interest underfoot, like a horse-roller going over a daisy. Bargee is free, and the ashes of his pipe are worth a king's ransom.

Imagine a great van loaded at the East-end of London with the heaviest merchandise, with bags of iron nails, shot, leaden sheets in rolls, and pig iron; imagine four strong horses—dray-horses—harnessed thereto. Then let the waggoner mount behind in a seat comfortably contrived for him facing the rear, and settle himself down happily among his sacks, light his pipe, and fold his hands untroubled with any worry of reins. Away they go through the crowded city, by the Bank of England, and across into Cheapside, cabs darting this way, carriages that, omnibuses forced up into side-streets, foot traffic suspended till the monster has passed; up Fleet-street, clearing the road in front of them—right through the stream of lawyers always rushing to and fro the Temple and the New Law Courts, along the Strand, and finally in triumph into Rotten Row at five o'clock on a June afternoon. See how they scatter! see how they run! The Row is swept clear from end to end—beauty, fashion, rank,—what are such trifles of an hour? The monster vans grind them all to powder. What such a waggoner might do on land, bargee does on the river.

Of olden time the silver Thames was the chosen mode of travel of Royalty—the highest in the land were rowed from palace to city, or city to palace, between its sunlit banks. Noblemen had their special oarsmen, and were in like manner conveyed, and could any other mode of journeying be equally pleasant? The coal-barge has bumped them all out of the way.

No man dares send forth the commonest cart unless in proper charge, and if the horse is not under control a fine is promptly administered. The coal-barge rolls and turns and drifts as chance and the varying current please. How huge must be the rent in the meshes of the law to let so large a fish go through! But in truth there is no law about it, and to this day no man can confidently affirm that he knows to whom the river belongs. These curious anomalies are part and parcel of our political system, and as I watched the black monster slowly go by with the stream it occurred to me that grimy bargee, with his short pipe and his onions, was really the guardian of the British Constitution.

Hardly had he gone past than a loud Pant! pant! pant! began some way down the river; it came from a tug, whose short puffs of steam produced a giant echo against the walls and quays and houses on the bank. These angry pants sounded high above the splash of oars and laughter, and the chorus of singers in a boat; they conquered all other sounds and noises, and domineered the place. It was impossible to shut the ears to them, or to persuade the mind not to heed. The swallows dipped their breasts; how gracefully they drank on the wing! Pant! pant! pant! The sunlight gleamed on the wake of a four-oar. Pant! pant! pant! The soft wind blew among the trees and over the hawthorn hedge. Pant! pant! pant! Neither the eye nor ear could attend to aught but this hideous uproar. The tug was weak, the stream strong, the barges behind heavy, broad, and deeply laden, so that each puff and pant and turn of the screw barely advanced the mass a foot. There are many feet in a mile, and for all that weary time—Pant! pant! pant! This dreadful uproar, like that which Don Quixote and Sancho Panza heard proceeding from the fulling mill, must be endured. Could not philosophy by stoic firmness shut out the sound? Can philosophy shut out anything that is real? A long black streak of smoke hung over the water, fouling the gleaming surface. A noise of Dante—hideous, uncompromising as the rusty hinge of the gate which forbids hope. Pant! pant! pant!

Once upon a time a Queen of England was rowed down the silver Thames to the sweet low sound of the flute.

At last the noise grew fainter in the distance, and the black hulls disappeared round the bend. I walked on up the towing-path. Accidentally lifting my hand to shade my eyes, I was hailed by a ferryman on the watch. He conveyed me over without much volition on my part, and set me ashore by the inn of my imagination. The rooms almost overhung the water: so far my vision was fulfilled. Within there was an odour of spirits and spilled ale, a rustle of sporting papers, talk of racings, and the click of billiard-balls. Without there were two or three loafers, half boatmen, half vagabonds, waiting to pick up stray sixpences—a sort of leprosy of rascal and sneak in their faces and the lounge of their bodies. These Thames-side "beach-combers" are a sorry lot, a special Pariah class of themselves. Some of them have been men once: perhaps one retains his sculling skill, and is occasionally engaged by a gentleman to give him lessons. They regarded me eagerly—they "spotted" a Thames freshman who might be made to yield silver; but I walked away down the road into the village. The spire of the church interested me, being of shingles—i.e. of wooden slates—as the houses are roofed in America, as houses were roofed in Elizabethan England; for Young America reproduces Old England even in roofs. Some of the houses so closely approached the churchyard that the pantry windows on a level with the ground were partly blocked up by the green mounds of graves. Borage grew thickly all over the yard, dropping its blue flowers on the dead. The sharp note of a bugle rang in the air: they were changing guard, I suppose, in Wolsey's Palace.

III

In time I did discover a skiff moored in a little-visited creek, which the boatman got out for me. The sculls were rough and shapeless—it is a remarkable fact that sculls always are, unless you have them made and keep them for your own use. I paddled up the river; I paused by an osier-grown islet; I slipped past the barges, and avoided an unskilful party; it was the morning, and none of the uproarious as yet were about. Certainly, it was very pleasant. The sunshine gleamed on the water, broad shadows of trees fell across; swans floated in the by-channels. A peacefulness which peculiarly belongs to water hovered above the river. A house-boat was moored near the willow-grown shore, and it was evidently inhabited, for there was a fire smouldering on the bank, and some linen that had been washed spread on the bushes to bleach. All the windows of this gipsy-van of the river were wide open, and the air and light entered freely into every part of the dwelling-house under which flowed the stream. A lady was dressing herself before one of these open windows, twining up large braids of dark hair, her large arms bare to the shoulder, and somewhat farther. I immediately steered out into the channel to avoid intrusion; but I felt that she was regarding me with all a matron's contempt for an unknown man—a mere member of the opposite sex, not introduced, or of her "set." I was merely a man—no more than a horse on the bank,—and had she been in her smock she would have been just as indifferent.

Certainly it was a lovely morning; the old red palace of the Cardinal seemed to slumber amid its trees, as if the passage of the centuries had stroked and soothed it into indolent peace. The meadows rested; even the swallows, the restless swallows, glided in an effortless way through the busy air. I could see this, and yet I did not quite enjoy it; something drew me away from perfect contentment, and gradually it dawned upon me that it was the current causing an unsuspected amount of labour in sculling. The forceless particles of water, so yielding to the touch, which slipped aside at the motion of the oar, in their countless myriads ceaselessly flowing grew to be almost a solid obstruction to the boat. I had not noticed it for a mile or so; now the pressure of the stream was becoming evident. I persuaded myself that it was nothing. I held on by the boathook to a root and rested, and so went on again. Another mile or more; another rest: decidedly sculling against a swift current is work—downright work. You have no energy to spare over and above that needed for the labour of rowing, not enough even to look round and admire the green loveliness of the shore. I began to think that I should not get as far as Oxford after all.

By-and-by, I began to question if rowing on a river is as pleasant as rowing on a lake, where you can rest on your oars without losing ground, where no current opposes progress, and after the stroke the boat slips ahead some distance of its own impetus. On the river the boat only travels as far as you actually pull it at each stroke; there is no life in it after the scull is lifted, the impetus dies, and the craft first pauses and then drifts backward. I crept along the shore, so near that one scull occasionally grounded, to avoid the main force of the water, which is in the middle of the river. I slipped behind eyots and tried all I knew. In vain, the river was stronger than I, and my arms could not for many hours contend with the Thames. So faded another part of my dream. The idea of rowing from one town to another—of expeditions and travelling across the country, so pleasant to think of—in practice became impossible. An athlete bent on nothing but athleticism—a canoeist thinking of nothing but his canoe—could accomplish it, setting himself daily so much work to do, and resolutely performing it. A dreamer, who wanted to enjoy his passing moment, and not to keep regular time with his strokes, who wanted to gather flowers, and indulge his luxurious eyes with effects of light and shadow and colour, could not succeed. The river is for the man of might.

With a weary back at last I gave up the struggle at the foot of a weir, almost in the splash of the cascade. My best friend, the boathook, kept me stationary without effort, and in time rest restored the strained muscles to physical equanimity. The roar of the river falling over the dam soothed the mind—the sense of an immense power at hand, working with all its might while you are at ease, has a strangely soothing influence. It makes me sleepy to see the vast beam of an engine regularly rise and fall in ponderous irresistible labour. Now at last some fragment of my fancy was realised—a myriad myriad rushing bubbles whitening the stream burst, and were instantly succeeded by myriads more; the boat faintly vibrated as the wild waters shot beneath it; the green cascade, smooth at its first curve, dashed itself into the depth beneath, broken to a million million particles; the eddies whirled, and sucked, and sent tiny whirlpools rotating along the surface; the roar rose or lessened in intensity as the velocity of the wind varied; sunlight sparkled—the warmth inclined the senses to a drowsy idleness. Yonder was the trout fisherman, just as I had imagined him, casting and casting again with that transcendental patience which is genius; his line and the top of his rod formed momentary curves pleasant to look at. The kingfisher did not come—no doubt he had been shot—but a reed-sparrow did, in velvet black cap and dainty brown, pottering about the willow near me. This was really like the beautiful river I had dreamed of. If only we could persuade ourselves to remain quiescent when we are happy! If only we would remain still in the armchair as the last curl of vapour rises from a cigar that has been enjoyed! If only we would sit still in the shadow and not go indoors to write that letter! Let happiness alone. Stir not an inch; speak not a word: happiness is a coy maiden—hold her hand and be still.

In an evil moment I spied the corner of a newspaper projecting from the pocket of my coat in the stern-sheets. Folly led me to open that newspaper, and in it I saw and read a ghastly paragraph. Two ladies and a gentleman while boating had been carried by the current against the piles of a weir. The boat upset; the ladies were rescued, but the unfortunate gentleman was borne over the fall and drowned. His body had not been recovered; men were watching the pool day and night till some chance eddy should bring it to the surface. So perished my dream, and the coy-maiden happiness left me because I could not be content to be silent and still. The accident had not happened at this weir, but it made no difference; I could see all as plainly. A white face, blurred and indistinct, seemed to rise up from beneath the rushing bubbles till, just as it was about to jump to the surface, as things do that come up, down it was drawn again by that terrible underpull which has been fatal to so many good swimmers.

Who can keep afloat with a force underneath dragging at the feet? Who can swim when the water—all bubbles, that is air—gives no resistance to the hands? Hands and feet slip through the bubbles. You might as well spring from the parapet of a house and think to float by striking out as to swim in such a medium. Sinking under, a hundred tons of water drive the body to the bottom; there it rotates, it rises, it is forced down again, a hundred tons of water beat upon it; the foot, perhaps, catches among stones or woodwork, and what was once a living being is imprisoned in death. Enough of this. I unloosed the boathook, and drifted down with the stream, anxious to get away from the horrible weir.

These accidents, which are entirely preventable, happen year after year with lamentable monotony. Each weir is a little Niagara, and a boat once within its influence is certain to be driven to destruction. The current carries it against the piles, where it is either broken or upset, the natural and reasonable alarm of the occupants increasing the risk. In descending the river every boat must approach the weir, and must pass within a few yards of the dangerous current. If there is a press of boats one is often forced out of the proper course into the rapid part of the stream without any negligence on the part of those in it. There is nothing to prevent this—no fence, or boom; no mark, even, between what is dangerous and what is not; no division whatever. Persons ignorant of the river may just as likely as not row right into danger. A vague caution on a notice-board may or may not be seen; in either case it gives no directions, and is certainly no protection. Let the matter be argued from whatever point of view, the fact remains that these accidents occur from the want of an efficient division between the dangerous and the safe part of the approach to a weir. A boom or some kind of fence is required, and how extraordinary it seems that nothing of the kind is done! It is not done because there is no authority, no control, no one responsible. Two or three gentlemen acquainted with aquatics could manage the river from end to end, to the safety and satisfaction of all, if they were entrusted with discretionary powers. Stiff rules and rigid control are not needed; what is wanted is a rational power freely using its discretion. I do not mean a Board with its attendant follies; I mean a small committee, unfettered, untrammelled by "legal advisers" and so forth, merely using their own good sense.

I drifted away from the weir—now grown hideous—and out of hearing of its wailing dirge for the unfortunate. I drifted past more barges coming up, and more steam-tugs; past river lawns, where gay parties were now sipping claret-cup or playing tennis. By-and-by, I began to meet pleasure-boats and to admire their manner of progress. First there came a gentleman in white flannels, walking on the tow-path, with a rope round his waist, towing a boat in which two ladies were comfortably seated. In a while came two more gentlemen in striped flannels, one streaked with gold the other with scarlet, striding side by side and towing a boat in which sat one lady. They were very earnestly at work, pacing in step, their bodies slightly leaning forwards, and every now and then they mopped their faces with handkerchiefs which they carried in their girdles. Something in their slightly-bowed attitude reminded me of the captives depicted on Egyptian monuments, with cords about their necks. How curious is that instinct which makes each sex, in different ways, the willing slave of the other! These human steam-tugs paced and pulled, and drew the varnished craft swiftly against the stream, evidently determined to do a certain distance by a certain hour. As I drifted by without labour, I admired them very much. An interval, and still more gentlemen in flannel, labouring like galley-slaves at the tow-rope, hot, perspiring, and happy after their kind, and ladies under parasols, comfortably seated, cool, and happy after their kind.

Considering upon these things, I began to discern the true and only manner in which the modern Thames is to be enjoyed. Above all things—nothing heroic. Don't scull—don't row—don't haul at tow-ropes—don't swim—don't flourish a fishing-rod. Set your mind at ease. Make friends with two or more athletes, thorough good fellows, good-natured, delighting in their thews and sinews. Explain to them that somehow, don't you see, nature did not bless you with such superabundant muscularity, although there is nothing under the sun you admire so much. Forthwith these good fellows will pet you, and your Thames fortune is made. You take your place in the stern-sheets, happily protected on either side by feminine human nature, and the parasols meeting above shield you from the sun. The tow-rope is adjusted, and the tugs start. The gliding motion soothes the soul. Feminine boating nature has no antipathy to the cigarette. A delicious odour, soft as new-mown hay, a hint of spices and distant flowers—sunshine dried and preserved, sunshine you can handle—rises from the smouldering fibres. This is smoking summer itself. Yonder in the fore part of the craft I espy certain vessels of glass on which is the label of Epernay. And of such is peace.

Drifting ever downwards, I approached the creek where my skiff had to be left; but before I reached it a "beach-comber," with a coil of cord over his shoulder, asked me if he should tow me "up to 'Ampton." I shook my head, whereupon he abused me in such choice terms that I listened abashed at my ignorance. It had never occurred to me that swearing could be done like that. It is true we have been swearing now, generation after generation, these eight thousand years for certain, and language expands with use. It is also true that we are all educated now. Shakespeare is credited with knowing everything, past or future, but I doubt if he knew how a Thames "beach-comber" can curse in these days.

The Thames is swearing free. You must moderate your curses on the Queen's highway; you must not be even profane in the streets, lest you be taken before the magistrates; but on the Thames you may swear as the wind blows—howsoever you list. You may begin at the mouth, off the Nore, and curse your way up to Cricklade. A hundred miles for swearing is a fine preserve. It is one of the marvels of our civilisation.

Aided by scarce a touch of the sculls the stream drifted me up into the creek, and the boatman took charge of his skiff. "Shall I keep her handy for you, sir?" he said, thinking to get me down every day as a newcomer. I begged him not to put himself to any trouble, still he repeated that he would keep her ready. But in the road I shook off the dust of my feet against the river, and earnestly resolved never, never again to have anything to do with it (in the heroic way) lower down than Henley.



THE SINGLE-BARREL GUN

The single-barrel gun has passed out of modern sport; but I remember mine with regret, and think I shall some day buy another. I still find that the best double-barrel seems top-heavy in comparison; in poising it the barrels have a tendency to droop. Guns, of course, are built to balance and lie level in the hand, so as to almost aim themselves as they come to the shoulder; and those who have always shot with a double-barrel are probably quite satisfied with the gun on that score. To me there seems too much weight in the left hand and towards the end of the gun. Quickness of firing keeps the double-barrel to the front; but suppose a repeater were to be invented, some day, capable of discharging two cartridges in immediate succession? And if two cartridges, why not three? An easy thought, but a very difficult one to realise. Something in the power of the double-barrel—the overwhelming odds it affords the sportsman over bird and animal—pleases. A man feels master of the copse with a double-barrel; and such a sense of power, though only over feeble creatures, is fascinating. Besides, there is the delight of effect; for a clever right and left is sure of applause and makes the gunner feel "good" in himself. Doubtless, if three barrels could be managed, three barrels would be more saleable than doubles. One gun-maker has a four-barrel gun, quite a light weight too, which would be a tremendous success if the creatures would obligingly run and fly a little slower, so that all four cartridges could be got in. But that they will not do. For the present, the double-barrel is the gun of the time.

Still I mean some day to buy a single-barrel, and wander with it as of old along the hedges, aware that if I am not skilful enough to bring down with the first shot I shall lose my game. It is surprising how confident of that one shot you may get after a while. On the one hand, it is necessary to be extremely keen; on the other, to be sure of your own self-control, not to fire uselessly. The bramble-bushes on the shore of the ditch ahead might cover a hare. Through the dank and dark-green aftermath a rabbit might suddenly come bounding, disturbed from the furrow where he had been feeding. On the sandy paths which the rabbits have made aslant up the mound, and on their terraces, where they sit and look out from under the boughs, acorns have dropped ripe from the tree. Where there are acorns there may be pheasants; they may crouch in the fern and dry grey grass of the hedge thinking you do not see them, or else rush through and take wing on the opposite side. The only chance of a shot is as the bird passes a gap—visible while flying a yard—just time to pull the trigger. But I would rather have that chance than have to fire between the bars of a gate; for the horizontal lines cause an optical illusion, making the object appear in a different position from what it really is in, and half the pellets are sure to be buried in the rails. Wood-pigeons, when eagerly stuffing their crops with acorns, sometimes forget their usual caution; and, walking slowly, I have often got right underneath one—as unconscious of his presence as he was of mine, till a sudden dashing of wings against boughs and leaves announced his departure. This he always makes on the opposite side of the oak, so as to have the screen of the thick branches between himself and the gunner. The wood-pigeon, starting like this from a tree, usually descends in the first part of his flight, a gentle downward curve followed by an upward rise, and thus comes into view at the lower part of the curve. He still seems within shot, and to afford a good mark; and yet experience has taught me that it is generally in vain to fire. His stout quills protect him at the full range of the gun. Besides, a wasted shot alarms everything within several hundred yards; and in stalking with a single-barrel it needs as much knowledge to choose when not to fire as when you may.

The most exciting work with the single-barrel was woodcock shooting; woodcock being by virtue of rarity a sort of royal game, and a miss at a woodcock a terrible disappointment. They have a trick of skimming along the very summit of a hedge, and looking so easy to kill; but, as they fly, the tops of tall briers here, willow-rods next, or an ash-pole often intervene, and the result is apt to be a bough cut off and nothing more. Snipes, on the contrary, I felt sure of with the single-barrel, and never could hit them so well with a double. Either at starting, before the snipe got into his twist, or waiting till he had finished that uncertain movement, the single-barrel seemed to drop the shot with certainty. This was probably because of its perfect natural balance, so that it moved as if on a pivot. With the single I had nothing to manage but my own arms; with the other I was conscious that I had a gun also. With the single I could kill farther, no matter what it was. The single was quicker at short shots—snap-shots, as at rabbits darting across a narrow lane; and surer at long shots, as at a hare put out a good way ahead by the dog.

For everything but the multiplication of slaughter I liked the single best; I had more of the sense of woodcraft with it. When we consider how helpless a partridge is, for instance, before the fierce blow of shot, it does seem fairer that the gunner should have but one chance at the bird. Partridges at least might be kept for single-barrels: great bags of partridges never seemed to be quite right. Somehow it seems to me that to take so much advantage as the double-barrel confers is not altogether in the spirit of sport. The double-barrel gives no "law." At least to those who love the fields, the streams, and woods for their own sake, the single-barrel will fill the bag sufficiently, and will permit them to enjoy something of the zest men knew before the invention of weapons not only of precision but of repetition: inventions that rendered them too absolute masters of the situation. A single-barrel will soon make a sportsman the keenest of shots. The gun itself can be built to an exquisite perfection—lightness, handiness, workmanship, and performance of the very best. It is said that you can change from a single-barrel shot-gun to a sporting rifle and shoot with the rifle almost at once; while many who have been used to the slap-dash double cannot do anything for some time with a rifle. More than one African explorer has found his single-barrel smooth-bore the most useful of all the pieces in his battery; though, of course, of much larger calibre than required in our fields.



THE HAUNT OF THE HARE

It is never so much winter in the country as it is in the town. The trees are still there, and in and about them birds remain. "Quip! whip!" sounds from the elms; "Whip! quip!" Redwing thrushes threaten with the "whip" those who advance towards them; they spend much of the day in the elm-tops. Thick tussocks of old grass are conspicuous at the skirt of a hedge; half green, half grey, they contrast with the bare thorn. From behind one of these tussocks a hare starts, his black-tipped ears erect, his long hinder limbs throwing him almost like a grasshopper over the sward—no creature looks so handsome or startling, and it is always a pleasant surprise to see him. Pheasant or partridge do not surprise in the least—they are no more than any other bird; but a hare causes quite a different feeling. He is perfectly wild, unfed, untended, and then he is the largest animal to be shot in the fields. A rabbit slips along the mound, under bushes and behind stoles, but a hare bolts for the open, and hopes in his speed. He leaves the straining spaniel behind, and the distance between them increases as they go. The spaniel's broad hind paws are thrown wide apart as he runs, striking outwards as well as backwards, and his large ears are lifted by the wind of his progress. Overtaken by the cartridge, still the hare, as he lies in the dewy grass, is handsome; lift him up and his fur is full of colour, there are layers of tint, shadings of brown within it, one under the other, and the surface is exquisitely clean. The colours are not really bright, at least not separately; but they are so clean and so clear that they give an impression of warmth and brightness. Even in the excitement of sport regret cannot but be felt at the sight of those few drops of blood about the mouth which indicate that all this beautiful workmanship must now cease to be. Had he escaped the sportsman would not have been displeased.

The black bud-sheaths of the ash may furnish a comparison for his ear-tips; the brown brake in October might give one hue for his fur; the yellow or buff bryony leaf perhaps another; the clematis is not whiter than the white part. His colours, as those of so many of our native wild creatures, appear selected from the woods, as if they had been gathered and skilfully mingled together. They can be traced or paralleled in the trees, the bushes, grasses, or flowers, as if extracted from them by a secret alchemy. In the plumage of the partridge there are tints that may be compared with the brown corn, the brown ripe grains rubbed from the ear; it is in the corn-fields that the partridge delights. There the young brood are sheltered, there they feed and grow plump. The red tips of other feathers are reflections of the red sorrel of the meadows. The grey fur of the rabbit resembles the grey ash hue of the underwood in which he hides.

A common plant in moist places, the figwort, bears small velvety flowers, much the colour of the red velvet topknot of the goldfinch, the yellow on whose wings is like the yellow bloom of the furze which he frequents in the winter, perching cleverly on its prickly extremities. In the woods, in the bark of the trees, the varied shades of the branches as their size diminishes, the adhering lichens, the stems of the underwood, now grey, now green; the dry stalks of plants, brown, white, or dark, all the innumerable minor hues that cross and interlace, there is suggested the woven texture of tints found on the wings of birds. For brighter tones the autumn leaves can be resorted to, and in summer the finches rising from the grass spring upwards from among flowers that could supply them with all their colours. But it is not so much the brighter as the undertones that seem to have been drawn from the woodlands or fields. Although no such influence has really been exerted by the trees and plants upon the living creatures, yet it is pleasant to trace the analogy. Those who would convert it into a scientific fact are met with a dilemma to which they are usually oblivious, i.e. that most birds migrate, and the very tints which in this country might perhaps, by a stretch of argument, be supposed to conceal them, in a distant climate with a different foliage, or none, would render them conspicuous. Yet it is these analogies and imaginative comparisons which make the country so delightful.

One day in autumn, after toiling with their guns, which are heavy in the September heats, across the fields and over the hills, the hospitable owner of the place suddenly asked his weary and thirsty friend which he would have, champagne, ale, or spirits. They were just then in the midst of a cover, the trees kept off the wind, the afternoon sun was warm, and thirst very natural. They had not been shooting in the cover, but had to pass through to other cornfields. It seemed a sorry jest to ask which would be preferred in that lonely and deserted spot, miles from home or any house whence refreshment could be obtained—wine, spirits, or ale?—an absurd question, and irritating under the circumstances. As it was repeated persistently, however, the reply was at length given, in no very good humour, and wine chosen. Forthwith putting down his gun, the interrogator pushed in among the underwood, and from a cavity concealed beneath some bushes drew forth a bottle of champagne. He had several of these stores hidden in various parts of the domain, ready whichever way the chance of sport should direct their footsteps.

Now the dry wild parsnip, or "gicks," five feet high, stands dead and dry, its jointed tube of dark stem surmounted with circular frills or umbels; the teazle heads are brown, the great burdocks leafless, and their burs, still adhering, are withered; the ground, almost free of obstruction, is comparatively easy to search over, but the old sportsman is too cunning to bury his wine twice in the same place, and it is no use to look about. No birds in last year's nests—the winds have torn and upset the mossy structures in the bushes; no champagne in last year's cover. The driest place is under the firs, where the needles have fallen and strew the surface thickly. Outside the wood, in the waggon-track, the beech leaves lie on the side of the mound, dry and shrivelled at the top, but stir them, and under the top layer they still retain the clear brown of autumn.

The ivy trailing on the bank is moist and freshly green. There are two tints of moss; one light, the other deeper—both very pleasant and restful to the eye. These beds of moss are the greenest and brightest of the winter's colours. Besides these there are ale-hoof, or ground-ivy leaves (not the ivy that climbs trees), violet leaves, celandine mars, primrose mars, foxglove mars, teazle mars, and barren strawberry leaves, all green in the midst of winter. One tiny white flower of barren strawberry has ventured to bloom. Round about the lower end of each maple stick, just at the ground, is a green wrap of moss. Though leafless above, it is green at the foot. At the verge of the ploughed field below, exposed as it is, chickweed, groundsel, and shepherd's-purse are flowering. About a little thorn there hang withered red berries of bryony, as if the bare thorn bore fruit; the bine of the climbing plant clings to it still; there are traces of "old man's beard," the white fluffy relics of clematis bloom, stained brown by the weather; green catkins droop thickly on the hazel. Every step presents some item of interest, and thus it is that it is never so much winter in the country. Where fodder has been thrown down in a pasture field for horses, a black congregation of rooks has crowded together in a ring. A solitary pole for trapping hawks stands on the sloping ground outside the cover. These poles are visited every morning when the trap is there, and the captured creature put out of pain. Of the cruelty of the trap itself there can be no doubt; but it is very unjust to assume that therefore those connected with sport are personally cruel. In a farmhouse much frequented by rats, and from which they cannot be driven out, these animals are said to have discovered a means of defying the gin set for them. One such gin was placed in the cheese-room, near a hole from which they issued, but they dragged together pieces of straw, little fragments of wood, and various odds and ends, and so covered the pan that the trap could not spring. They formed, in fact, a bridge over it.

Red and yellow fungi mark decaying places on the trunks and branches of the trees; their colour is brightest when the boughs are bare. By a streamlet wandering into the osier beds the winter gnats dance in the sunshine, round about an old post covered with ivy, on which green berries are thick. The warm sunshine gladdens the hearts of the moorhens floating on the water yonder by the bushes, and their singular note, "coorg-coorg," is uttered at intervals. In the plantation close to the house a fox resides as safe as King Louis in "Quentin Durward," surrounded with his guards and archers and fortified towers, though tokens of his midnight rambles, in the shape of bones, strew the front of his castle. He crosses the lawn in sight of the windows occasionally, as if he really knew and understood that his life is absolutely safe at ordinary times, and that he need beware of nothing but the hounds.



THE BATHING SEASON

Most people who go on the West Pier at Brighton walk at once straight to the farthest part. This is the order and custom of pier promenading; you are to stalk along the deck till you reach the end, and there go round and round the band in a circle like a horse tethered to an iron pin, or else sit down and admire those who do go round and round. No one looks back at the gradually extending beach and the fine curve of the shore. No one lingers where the surf breaks—immediately above it—listening to the remorseful sigh of the dying wave as it sobs back to the sea. There, looking downwards, the white edge of the surf recedes in hollow crescents, curve after curve for a mile or more, one succeeding before the first can disappear and be replaced by a fresh wave. A faint mistiness hangs above the beach at some distance, formed of the salt particles dashed into the air and suspended. At night, if the tide chances to be up, the white surf rushing in and returning immediately beneath has a strange effect, especially in its pitiless regularity. If one wave seems to break a little higher it is only in appearance, and because you have not watched long enough. In a certain number of times another will break there again; presently one will encroach the merest trifle; after a while another encroaches again, and the apparent irregularity is really sternly regular. The free wave has no liberty—it does not act for itself,—no real generous wildness. "Thus far and no farther," is not a merciful saying. Cold and dread and pitiless, the wave claims its due—it stretches its arms to the fullest length, and does not pause or hearken to the desire of any human heart. Hopeless to appeal to is the unseen force that sends the white surge underneath to darken the pebbles to a certain line. The wetted pebbles are darker than the dry; even in the dusk they are easily distinguished. Something merciless is there not in this conjunction of restriction and impetus? Something outside human hope and thought—indifferent—cold?

Considering in this way, I wandered about fifty yards along the pier, and sat down in an abstracted way on the seat on the right side. Beneath, the clear green sea rolled in crestless waves towards the shore—they were moving "without the animation of the wind," which had deserted them two days ago, and a hundred miles out at sea. Slower and slower, with an indolent undulation, rising and sinking of mere weight and devoid of impetus, the waves passed on, scarcely seeming to break the smoothness of the surface. At a little distance it seemed level; yet the boats every now and then sank deeply into the trough, and even a large fishing-smack rolled heavily. For it is the nature of a groundswell to be exceedingly deceptive. Sometimes the waves are so far apart that the sea actually is level—smooth as the surface of a polished dining-table—till presently there appears a darker line slowly approaching, and a wave of considerable size comes in, advancing exactly like the crease in the cloth which the housemaid spreads on the table—the air rolling along underneath it forms a linen imitation of the groundswell. These unexpected rollers are capital at upsetting boats just touching the beach; the boat is broadside on and the occupants in the water in a second. To-day the groundswell was more active, the waves closer together, not having had time to forget the force of the extinct gale. Yet the sea looked calm as a millpond—just the morning for a bath.

Along the yellow line where sand and pebbles meet there stood a gallant band, in gay uniforms, facing the water. Like the imperial legions who were ordered to charge the ocean, and gather the shells as spoils of war, the cohorts gleaming in purple and gold extended their front rank—their fighting line one to a yard—along the strand. Some tall and stately; some tall and slender; some well developed and firm on their limbs; some gentle in attitude, even in their war dress; some defiant; perhaps forty or fifty, perhaps more, ladies; a splendid display of womanhood in the bright sunlight. Blue dresses, pink dresses, purple dresses, trimmings of every colour; a gallant show. The eye had but just time to receive these impressions as it were with a blow of the camera—instantaneous photography—when, boom! the groundswell was on them, and, heavens, what a change! They disappeared. An arm projected here, possibly a foot yonder, tresses floated on the surface like seaweed, but bodily they were gone. The whole rank from end to end was overthrown—more than that, overwhelmed, buried, interred in water like Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea. Crush! It had come on them like a mountain. The wave so clear, so beautifully coloured, so cool and refreshing, had struck their delicate bodies with the force of a ton weight. Crestless and smooth to look at, in reality that treacherous roller weighed at least a ton to a yard.

Down went each fair bather as if hit with shot from a Gatling gun. Down she went, frantically, and vainly grasping at a useless rope; down with water driven into her nostrils, with a fragment, a tiny blade, of seaweed forced into her throat, choking her; crush on the hard pebbles, no feather bed, with the pressure of a ton of water overhead, and the strange rushing roar it makes in the ears. Down she went, and at the same time was dragged head foremost, sideways, anyhow, but dragged—ground along on the bitter pebbles some yards higher up the beach, each pebble leaving its own particular bruise, and the suspended sand filling the eyes. Then the wave left her, and she awoke from the watery nightmare to the bright sunlight, and the hissing foam as it subsided, prone at full length, high and dry like a stranded wreck. Perhaps her head had tapped the wheel of the machine in a friendly way—a sort of genial battering ram. The defeat was a perfect rout; yet they recovered position immediately. I fancy I did see one slip limply to cover; but the main body rose manfully, and picked their way with delicate feet on the hard, hard stones back again to the water, again to meet their inevitable fate.

The white ankles of the blonde gleaming in the sunshine were distinguishable, even at that distance, from the flesh tint of the brunette beside her, and these again from the swarthiness of still darker ankles, which did not gleam, but had a subdued colour like dead gold. The foam of a lesser wave ran up and touched their feet submissively. Three young girls in pink clustered together; one crouched with her back to the sea and glanced over her timorous shoulder. Another lesser wave ran up and left a fringe of foam before them. I looked for a moment out to sea and saw the smack roll heavily, the big wave was coming. By now the bathers had gathered confidence, and stepped, a little way at a time, closer and closer down to the water. Some even stood where each lesser wave rose to their knees. Suddenly a few leant forwards, pulling their ropes taut, and others turned sideways; these were the more experienced or observant. Boom! The big roller broke near the pier and then ran along the shore; it did not strike the whole length at once, it came in aslant and rushed sideways. The three in pink went first—they were not far enough from their machine to receive its full force, it barely reached to the waist, and really I think it was worse for them. They were lifted off their feet and shot forward with their heads under water; one appeared to be under the two others, a confused mass of pink. Their white feet emerged behind the roller, and as it sank it drew them back, grinding them over the pebbles: every one knows how pebbles grate and grind their teeth as a wave subsides. Left lying on their faces, I guessed from their attitudes that they had dug their finger-nails into the pebbles in an effort to seize something that would hold. Somehow they got on their knees and crept up the slope of the beach. Beyond these three some had been standing about up to their knees; these were simply buried as before—quite concealed and thrown like beams of timber, head first, feet first, high up on shore. Group after group went down as the roller reached them, and the sea was dyed for a minute with blue dresses, purple dresses, pink dresses; they coloured the wave which submerged them. From end to end the whole rank was again overwhelmed, nor did any position prove of advantage; those who sprang up as the wave came were simply turned over and carried on their backs, those who tried to dive under were swept back by the tremendous under-rush. Sitting on the beach, lying at full length, on hands and knees, lying on this side or that, doubled up—there they were, as the roller receded, in every disconsolate attitude imaginable; the curtain rose and disclosed the stage in disorder. Again I thought I saw one or two limp to their machines, but the main body adjusted themselves and faced the sea.

Was there ever such courage? National untaught courage—inbred, and not built of gradual instruction as it were in hardihood. Yet some people hesitate to give women the franchise! actually, a miserable privilege which any poor fool of a man may exercise.

I was philosophising admirably in this strain when first a shadow came and then the substance, that is, a gentleman sat down by me and wished me good morning, in a slightly different accent to that we usually hear. I looked wistfully at the immense length of empty seats; on both sides of the pier for two hundred yards or more there extended an endless empty seat. Why could not he have chosen a spot to himself? Why must he place himself just here, so close as to touch me? Four hundred yards of vacant seats, and he could not find room for himself.

It is a remarkable fact in natural history that one's elbow is sure to be jogged. It does not matter what you do; suppose you paint in the most secluded spot, and insert yourself, moreover, in the most inconspicuous part of that spot, some vacant physiognomy is certain to intrude, glaring at you with glassy eye. Suppose you do nothing (like myself), no matter where you do it some inane humanity obtrudes itself. I took out my note-book once in a great open space at the Tower of London, a sort of court or place of arms, quite open and a gunshot across; there was no one in sight, and if there had been half a regiment they could have passed (and would have passed) without interference. I had scarcely written three lines when the pencil flew up the page, some hulking lout having brushed against me. He could not find room for himself. A hundred yards of width was not room enough for him to go by. He meant no harm; it did not occur to him that he could be otherwise than welcome. He was the sort of man who calmly sleeps on your shoulder in a train, and merely replaces his head if you wake him twenty times. The very same thing has happened to me in the parks, and in country fields; particularly it happens at the British Museum and the picture galleries, there is room sufficient in all conscience; but if you try to make a note or a rough memorandum sketch you get a jog. There is a jogger everywhere, just as there is a buzzing fly everywhere in summer. The jogger travels, too.

One day, while studying in the Louvre, I am certain three or four hundred French people went by me, mostly provincials I fancy, country-folks, in short, from their dress, which was not Parisian, and their accent, which was not of the Boulevards. Of all these not one interfered with me; they did not approach within four or five feet. How grateful I felt towards them! One man and his sweetheart, a fine southern girl with dark eyes and sun-browned cheeks, sat down near me on one of the scanty seats provided. The man put his umbrella and his hat on the seat beside him. What could be more natural? No one else was there, and there was room for three more couples. Instantly an official—an authority!—stepped hastily forward from the shadow of some sculpture (beasts of prey abide in darkness), snatched up the umbrella and hat, and rudely dashed them on the floor. In a flow of speech he explained that nothing must be placed on the seats. The man, who had his handkerchief in his hand, quietly dropped it into his hat on the floor, and replied nothing. This was an official "jogger." I felt indignant to see and hear people treated in this rough manner; but the provincial was used to the jogger system and heeded it not. My own jogger was coming. Three to four hundred country-folk had gone by gently and in a gentlemanly way. Then came an English gentleman, middle-aged, florid, not much tinctured with art or letters, but garnished with huge gold watchchain and with wealth as it were bulging out of his waistcoat pocket. This gentleman positively walked into me, pushed me-literally pushed me aside and took my place, a place valuable to me at that moment for one special aspect, and having shoved me aside, gazed about him through his eyeglass, I suppose to discover what it was interested me. He was a genuine, thoroughbred jogger. The vast galleries of the Louvre had not room enough for him. He was one of the most successful joggers in the world, I feel sure; any family might be proud of him. While I am thus digressing, the bathers have gone over thrice.

The individual who had sat himself down by me produced a little box and offered me a lozenge. I did not accept it; he took one himself in token that they were harmless. Then he took a second, and a third, and began to tell me of their virtues; they cured this and they alleviated that, they were the greatest discovery of the age; this universal lozenge was health in the waistcoat pocket, a medicine-chest between finger and thumb; the secret had been extracted at last, and nature had given up the ghost as it were of her hidden physic. His eloquence conjured up in my mind a vision of the rocks beside the Hudson river papered over with acres of advertising posters. But no; by his further conversation I found that I had mentally slandered him; he was not a proprietor of patent medicine; he was a man of education and private means; he belonged to a much higher profession, in fact he was a "jogger" travelling about from place to place—"globetrotting" from capital city to watering-place—all over the world in the exercise of his function. I had wondered if his accent was American (petroleum-American), or German, or Italian, or Russian, or what. Now I wondered no longer, for the jogger is cosmopolitan. When he had exhausted his lozenge he told me how many times the screw of the steamer revolved while carrying him across the Pacific from Yokohama to San Francisco. I nearly suggested that it was about equal to the number of times his tongue had vibrated in the last ten minutes. The bathers went over twice more. I was anxious to take note of their bravery, and turned aside, leaning over the iron back of the seat. He went on just the same; a hint was no more to him than a feather bed to an ironclad.

My rigid silence was of no avail; so long as my ears were open he did not care. He was a very energetic jogger. However, it occurred to me to try another plan: I turned towards him (he would much rather have had my back) and began to talk in the most strident tones I could command. I pointed out to him that the pier was decked like a vessel, that the cliffs were white, that a lady passing had a dark blue dress on, which did not suit with the green sea, not because it was blue, but because it was the wrong tint of blue. I informed him that the Pavilion was once the residence of royalty, and similar novelties; all in a string without a semicolon. His eyes opened; he fumbled with his lozenge-box, said "Good morning," and went on up the pier. I watched him go—English-Americano- Germano-Franco-Prussian-Russian-Chinese-New Zealander that he was. But he was not a man of genius; you could choke him off by talking. Still he had effectually jogged me and spoiled my contemplative enjoyment of the bathers' courage; upon the whole I thought I would go down on the beach now and see them a little closer. The truth is, I suppose, that it is people like myself who are in the wrong, or are in the way. What business had I to make a note in the Tower yard, or study in the Louvre? what business have I to think, or indulge myself in an idea? What business has any man to paint, or sketch, or do anything of the sort? I suppose the joggers are in the right.

Dawdling down Whitehall one day a jogger nailed me—they come to me like flies to honey—and got me to look at his pamphlet. He went about, he said, all his time distributing them as a duty for the safety of the nation. The pamphlet was printed in the smallest type, and consisted of extracts from various prophetical authors, pointing out the enormity of the Babylonian Woman, of the City of Scarlet, or some such thing; the gist being the bitterest—almost scurrilous—attack on the Church of Rome. The jogger told me, with tears of pride in his eyes and a glorified countenance, that only a few days before, in the waiting-room of a railway station, he had the pleasure to present his pamphlet to Cardinal Manning. And the Cardinal bowed and put it in his pocket.

Just as everybody walks on the sunny side of Regent-street, so there are certain spots on the beach where people crowd together. This is one of them; just west of the West Pier there is a fair between eleven and one every bright morning. Everybody goes because everybody else does. Mamma goes down to bathe with her daughters and the little ones; they take two machines at least; the pater comes to smoke his cigar; the young fellows of the family-party come to look at "the women," as they irreverently speak of the sex. So the story runs on ad infinitum, down to the shoeless ones that turn up everywhere. Every seat is occupied; the boats and small yachts are filled; some of the children pour pebbles into the boats, some carefully throw them out; wooden spades are busy; sometimes they knock each other on the head with them, sometimes they empty pails of sea-water on a sister's frock. There is a squealing, squalling, screaming, shouting, singing, bawling, howling, whistling, tin-trumpeting, and every luxury of noise. Two or three bands work away; niggers clatter their bones; a conjurer in red throws his heels in the air; several harps strum merrily different strains; fruit-sellers push baskets into folks' faces; sellers of wretched needlework and singular baskets coated with shells thrust their rubbish into people's laps. These shell baskets date from George IV. The gingerbeer men and the newsboys cease not from troubling. Such a volume of uproar, such a complete organ of discord I mean a whole organful cannot be found anywhere else on the face of the earth in so comparatively small a space. It is a sort of triangular plot of beach crammed with everything that ordinarily annoys the ears and offends the sight.

Yet you hear nothing and see nothing; it is perfectly comfortable, perfectly jolly and exhilarating, a preferable spot to any other. A sparkle of sunshine on the breakers, a dazzling gleam from the white foam, a warm sweet air, light and brightness and champagniness; altogether lovely. The way in which people lie about on the beach, their legs this way, and their arms that, their hats over their eyes, their utter give-themselves-up expression of attitude is enough in itself to make a reasonable being contented. Nobody cares for anybody; they drowned Mrs. Grundy long ago. The ancient philosopher (who had a mind to eat a fig) held that a nail driven into wood could only support a certain weight. After that weight was exceeded either the wood must break or the nail come out. Yonder is a wooden seat put together with nails—a flimsy contrivance, which defies all rules of gravity and adhesion. One leg leans one way, the other in the opposite direction; very lame legs indeed. Careful folk would warn you not to sit on it lest it should come to pieces. The music, I suppose, charms it, for it holds together in the most marvellous manner. Four people are sitting on it, four big ones, middle-aged, careful people; every moment the legs gape wide apart, the structure visibly stretches and yields and sinks in the pebbles, yet it does not come down. The stoutest of all sits actually over the lame legs, reading his paper quite oblivious of the odd angle his plump person makes, quite unconscious of the threatened crack—crash! It does not happen. A sort of magnetism sticks it together; it is in the air; it makes things go right that ought to go wrong. Awfully naughty place; no sort of idea of rightness here. Humming and strumming, and singing and smoking, splashing, and sparkling; a buzz of voices and booming of sea! If they could only be happy like this always!

Mamma has a tremendous fight over the bathing-dresses, her own, of course; the bathing woman cannot find them, and denies that she had them, and by-and-by, after half an hour's exploration, finds them all right, and claims commendation for having put them away so safely. Then there is the battle for a machine. The nurse has been keeping guard on the steps, to seize it the instant the occupant comes out. At last they get it, and the wonder is how they pack themselves in it. Boom! The bathers have gone over again, I know. The rope stretches as the men at the capstan go round, and heave up the machines one by one before the devouring tide.

As it is not at all rude, but the proper thing to do, I thought I would venture a little nearer (not too obtrusively near) and see closer at hand how brave womanhood faced the rollers. There was a young girl lying at full length at the edge of the foam. She reclined parallel to the beach, not with her feet towards the sea, but so that it came to her side. She was clad in some material of a gauzy and yet opaque texture, permitting the full outline and the least movement to be seen. The colour I do not exactly know how to name; they could tell you at the Magasin du Louvre, where men understand the hues of garments as well as women. I presume it was one of the many tints that are called at large "creamy." It suited her perfectly. Her complexion was in the faintest degree swarthy, and yet not in the least like what a lady would associate with that word. The difficulty in describing a colour is that different people take different views of the terms employed; ladies have one scale founded a good deal on dress, men another, and painters have a special (and accurate) gamut which they use in the studio. This was a clear swarthiness a translucent swarthiness clear as the most delicate white. There was something in the hue of her neck as freely shown by the loose bathing dress, of her bare arms and feet, somewhat recalling to mind the kind of beauty attributed to the Queen of Egypt. But it was more delicate. Her form was almost fully developed, more so than usual at her age. Again and again the foam rushed up deep enough to cover her limbs, but not sufficiently so to hide her chest, as she was partly raised on one arm. Washed thus with the purest whiteness of the sparkling foam, her beauty gathered increase from the touch of the sea. She swayed slightly as the water reached her, she was luxuriously recked to and fro. The waves, toyed with her; they came and retired, happy in her presence; the breeze and the sunshine were there.

Standing somewhat back, the machines hid the waves from me till they reached the shore, so that I did not observe the heavy roller till it came and broke. A ton of water fell on her, crush! The edge of the wave curled and dropped over her, the arch bowed itself above her, the keystone of the wave fell in. She was under the surge while it rushed up and while it rushed back; it carried her up to the steps of the machine and back again to her original position. When it subsided she simply shook her head, raised herself on one arm, and adjusted herself parallel to the beach as before.

Let any one try this, let any one lie for a few minutes just where the surge bursts, and he will understand what it means. Men go out to the length of their ropes—past and outside the line of the breakers, or they swim still farther out and ride at ease where the wave, however large, merely lifts them pleasantly as it rolls under. But the smashing force of the wave is where it curls and breaks, and it is there that the ladies wait for it. It is these breakers in a gale that tear to pieces and destroy the best-built ships once they touch the shore, scattering their timbers as the wind scatters leaves. The courage and the endurance women must possess to face a groundswell like this!

All the year they live in luxury and ease, and are shielded from everything that could hurt. A bruise—a lady to receive a bruise; it is not be to thought of! If a ruffian struck a lady in Hyde Park the world would rise from its armchair in a fury of indignation. These waves and pebbles bruise them as they list. They do not even flinch. There must, then, be a natural power of endurance in them.

It is unnecessary, and yet I was proud to see it. An English lady could do it; but could any other?—unless, indeed, an American of English descent. Still, it is a barbarous thing, for bathing could be easily rendered pleasant. The cruel roller receded, the soft breeze blew, the sunshine sparkled, the gleaming foam rushed up and gently rocked her. The Infanta Cleopatra lifted her arm gleaming wet with spray, and extended it indolently; the sun had only given her a more seductive loveliness. How much more enjoyable the sea and breeze and sunshine when one is gazing at something so beautiful. That arm, rounded and soft——

"Excuse me, sir, but your immortal soul"—a hand was placed on my elbow. I turned, and saw a beaming face; a young lady, elegantly dressed, placed a fly-sheet of good intentions in my fingers. The fair jogger beamed yet more sweetly as I took it, and went on among the crowd. When I looked back the Infanta Cleopatra had ascended into her machine. I had lost the last few moments of loveliness.



UNDER THE ACORNS

Coming along a woodland lane, a small round and glittering object in the brushwood caught my attention. The ground was but just hidden in that part of the wood with a thin growth of brambles, low, and more like creepers than anything else. These scarcely hid the surface, which was brown with the remnants of oak-leaves; there seemed so little cover, indeed, that a mouse might have been seen. But at that spot some great spurge-plants hung this way and that, leaning aside, as if the sterns were too weak to uphold the heads of dark-green leaves. Thin grasses, perfectly white, bleached by the sun and dew, stood in a bunch by the spurge; their seeds had fallen, the last dregs of sap had dried within them, there was nothing left but the bare stalks. A creeper of bramble fenced round one side of the spurge and white grass bunch, and brown leaves were visible on the surface of the ground through the interstices of the spray. It was in the midst of this little thicket that a small, dark, and glittering object caught my attention. I knew it was the eye of some creature at once, but, supposing it nothing more than a young rabbit, was passing on, thinking of other matters, when it occurred to me, before I could finish the step I had taken, so quick is thought, that the eye was not large enough to be that of a rabbit. I stopped; the black glittering eye had gone—the creature had lowered its neck, but immediately noticing that I was looking in that direction, it cautiously raised itself a little, and I saw at once that the eye was the eye of a bird. This I knew first by its size, and next by its position in relation to the head, which was invisible—for had it been a rabbit or hare, its ears would have projected. The moment after, the eye itself confirmed this—the nictitating membrane was rapidly drawn over it, and as rapidly removed. This membrane is the distinguishing mark of a bird's eye. But what bird? Although I was within two yards, I could not even see its head, nothing but the glittering eyeball, on which the light of the sun glinted. The sunbeams came over my shoulder straight into the bird's face.

Without moving—which I did not wish to do, as it would disturb the bird—I could not see its plumage; the bramble spray in front, the spurge behind, and the bleached grasses at the side, perfectly concealed it. Only two birds I considered would be likely to squat and remain quiescent like this—partridge or pheasant; but I could not contrive to view the least portion of the neck. A moment afterwards the eye came up again, and the bird slightly moved its head, when I saw its beak, and knew it was a pheasant immediately. I then stepped forward—almost on the bird—and a young pheasant rose, and flew between the tree-trunks to a deep dry watercourse, where it disappeared under some withering yellow-ferns.

Of course I could easily have solved the problem long before, merely by startling the bird; but what would have been the pleasure of that? Any plough-lad could have forced the bird to rise, and would have recognised it as a pheasant; to me, the pleasure consisted in discovering it under every difficulty. That was woodcraft; to kick the bird up would have been simply nothing at all. Now I found why I could not see the pheasant's neck or body; it was not really concealed, but shaded out by the mingled hues of white grasses, the brown leaves of the surface, and the general grey-brown tints. Now it was gone, there was a vacant space its plumage had filled up that vacant space with hues so similar, that, at no farther distance than two yards, I did not recognise it by colour. Had the bird fully carried out its instinct of concealment, and kept its head down as well as its body, I should have passed it. Nor should I have seen its head if it had looked the other way; the eye betrayed its presence. The dark glittering eye, which the sunlight touched, caught my attention instantly. There is nothing like an eye in inanimate nature; no flower, no speck on a bough, no gleaming stone wet with dew, nothing, indeed, to which it can be compared. The eye betrayed it; I could not overlook an eye. Neither nature nor inherited experience had taught the pheasant to hide its eye; the bird not only wished to conceal itself, but to watch my motions and, looking up from its cover, was immediately observed.