Sporting notions of present days and past

4
252 SPORTING NOTIONS
me at Shepperton and Chertsey, two big locks
through which I was the only farer at the time,
with nothing going up with me or coming out.
Some day we shall have rollers, or, better still,
a lift, for small craft at every lock. The lift
or an arrangement for placing the boats on
a sort of cradle, and lowering them down or
drawing them up by machinery will expedite
matters greatly, and perhaps by then a reasonable
limit to the length of launches will be fixed, and
traffic through the gates be much lighter and
easier.
I am always fond of the bends round from
Walton Bridge to Halliford, and again past
Shepperton to the lock so-called, but which might
as well be styled Weybridge. Below Halliford I
got a mixed reception. First from the admiral
of a monkey-boat, who shouted, " Hi! get out of
that! " which is not polite in words. The barge
was being towed down by a horse. The high
officer commanding, though rude of speech, was a
good sort. You do not as a rule argue to the
extent of risking a collision with craft of this
description, any more than a brougham chances
the result of trying to scrape the varnish off
the wheels of a brewer's dray. So I " hi'd and
got out of that," and, like the village blacksmith
and the whole world, looked the bargee in the
face when I came alongside. " There's a many
accidents happens with small boats when you're
horse-towing, and you were safer outside, gover-
nor," said he. If we had been going the same
way, he should have had his share of a jolly quart
for that. He sent me on my way with half the
captiousness gone. But he only sent me off so
lightened of my load to pick up another, for I was