Sporting notions of present days and past

,
�+irr'f'rartr+tri'�
tr+itVit►ot folftq
MOLESEY TO DATCHET 253
scarcely clear before a second hail instructed me
to " look where I was coming." I had no need to
screw my head to look where I
was
coming, or
because I knew exactly what I was doing, and
that a canoe was inshore—why inshore, as he,
the canoeist, had no business there, I did not see.
But I didn't mind playing Uncle Toby to his
foolish fly. The world—or the river—was big
enough for both of us. Still, to be told to
look where I was going was a bit too much,
so says I, "Surely thirty yards of water leaves
room enough for you ? " But the party concerned
couldn't see that. He was all "side," what there
was of him that wasn't shirt-front—a " something "
of a cove in his own estimation—and wanted to
argue. What I ought to have done with the
ill-mannered cub was to take my own place,
and let him either get out of the way or be put
out of it. How this sort of young man would
enjoy himself on the tideway to be sure when
he started on some of the rowing men of those
parts !
I never go by Dunton's without a kindly
thought for that genial, clever boat-builder, nor a
laugh at my own expense, recollecting how he
rigged me out after I got into the lock a year
or two ago, and had to swim till they floated me
up to the top just as, so says tradition, the Irish
lock-keeper lifted the coach and drowned all the
passengers, including the father of the gentleman
who owns the eyot just opposite Dunton's yard.
When above Shepperton you generally get more
variety in the way of birds and other creatures.
The first side-show I had was from some cows,
who ought to be filing into their meadows, but
couldn't file because one cow had got mislaid, or
�r