the water-meads down to the salt water, on the contrary, have plenty of eels and flounders. The head of these streams was one of the favourite resorts of Den's boyhood; he got many a quilting for going there.

It was a water-lane-a public way for any carthorse or cow that the owners might think fit to take there as wide as an ordinary road; high and very steep banks were on either side, covered with ash and alder. All sorts of tangle flourished close to the water, which was never more than a foot deep, and in some places not so deep. Watercress, and a thick growing plant they called waterparsley, covered the bottom, except where the current had made a clear lane through the middle. One day Den was going through this with the miller's son, when a fine silver-bellied eel dashed out from the weeds where he had been concealed; they could follow his course for a long way down the clear bed of the stream. This excited Den; but when his companion told him not only eels in plenty but also dabchicks were to be caught, the temptation was too much for him, and he quietly planned an exploring expedition with one or two companions whom he knew to be always ready for sport.

They started from home on a morning fixed

upon between themselves, trim and neat, as their mothers liked to send them to school; but instead of going there, they hurried away up the water-lane to capture dabchicks and big eels. The plan of campaign was that two were to pull up the weeds. and water-cress by the roots, and the other two were to catch the eels as fast as they were dislodged. But, alas! the eels bolted out between the small hands and legs so fast, that they were only as so many flashes of light in the eyes of their would-be captors; and in their eagerness they only fell over each other in the water. Then they fought all round because the job had not gone off as they expected. The uprooted weeds floating down the main stream told their own tale; and when the four boys found their way back to the startingpoint, their mothers were awaiting them there. I will draw a veil over what followed. To be "quilted" by their fathers was bad, but there was a humiliation about the whipping from the maternal hand which is not easily described. In spite of chastisement, as the four grew older they gained experience. Dabchick or water-rail both had to look alive when they were on the hunt; and when the gates of the tidal mill-pond were up, few flounders or eels escaped their spears. The younger children idolised Den and his friends, for

they used to carry them on their shoulders through the swamps, and make whistles for them from the willows and reeds, which filled them with joy. Not so their mothers, who declared they drove them frantic with their tootlings, and the bigger lads ought to know better than to start them making such a noise.

CHAPTER XII.

FLOTSAM AND JETSAM.

IN Denzil's time the saltings and the shore, with the slub, was No-man's Land, as far as a man's legs could carry him on a long day's prowl. There were boards fixed on stout poles, here and there, which set forth in complicated legal terms the rights of certain individuals to the flotsam and jetsam of the foreshore, with all privileges thereunto belonging. But these were unheeded; no one stopped to read them. On a warm summer's day the folks would have fallen asleep over so tough a job, and in wintry weather, with a gale from the nor'ard, fowl coming up off the sea, and the salt spindrift making your eyes smart, you would not care to spell the matter out.

One hoarse-voiced, hardened old sea-dog, I well remember, who was ordered to replace a certain portion of cargo on the spot where he had found it.

This he refused to do in the strongest nautical terms at his command, offering at the same time to fight the matter out there and then. On this he was mildly requested to look at the notice-board close to him. "He was no scholard," he replied, and had no desire to be one, with a few round oaths directed at those who were. However, he was compelled reluctantly to give up the treasuretrove-in this case a couple of two-gallon casks full of spirits, which had been half buried in the sand.

The excise officers had work to do in those days. Sometimes a swift-sailing boat, whose only fault was that she carried a valuable cargo, would be sawn asunder in the middle and sold to make fishermen's huts of.

Police proper there were none, only a constable. He was a mason, and a mild-spoken individual. There was little he could do, but it was considered essential to the dignity of the locality that it should possess a constable! Sometimes a serious dispute would take place over a small portion of flotsam, and the matter would be fought out on the shore -the conqueror carrying off the spoil, and the vanquished receiving a "quilting." Then was the time for the Marshton constable to show his authority. On getting home from his work the matter would be reported to him, the effect of