we are en

We must all

be a pount a day out of my pocket. O tam! I can't stant that." And he came down to the Plas from London, where he'd been attending Parliament, in a very bad temper. The rent-day was on just then, and the tenants' dinner; and at the dinner, Sir John made a speech as usual. "My frients," he said, gaged in a tremendous struggle, in a very pig war. put our shoulders to the wheel, for the sake of our Queen and country. If need is, you must rally round your old chief." You should have heard the roar there was, for they were all very fond of Sir John; and indeed his strong ale was something to be remembered. "But," he went on, when silence was restored, "we must all make sacrifices-you, and I, and everybody-I have to make 'em first of all. Do you know what the war costs me, my frients and tenants? I'll tell you-more than a pount a day !""Deud anwyl!" cried all the tenants; "a pount a day! Think of that, David! Sir John paying a pount a day to the war. Dear me!"-" And now, my frients and tenants, it follows that you'll have to make some little sacrifices too," went on Sir John; "but trifling-nothing to what I have to do. My frients and tenants, I've raised your rents five per cent all round. Now shout for your Queen and country, and for your landlords and protectors!"'

And they paid it?'

'Of course they did, and were thankful to get off so cheap. Wasn't Sir John paying a shilling in the pound for the country all the time? O, you're a very loyal race!'

And so we are, captain, and very font of Queen Victoria, and we don't mind paying for her too, captain-only what we've paid before it's the new things we don't like, captain. And what did Sir John do when the war was over?'

:

'He forgot to take off the five per cent.'

Dear me that was clever. Yes, I give in to you there, cap-
But we've got clever men

tain; Sir John was a very clever man.

in these days too, captain.'

captain after a the square in

6

'But we were talking about intellect,' said the pause, during which the coach had driven off, and front of the hotel had resumed its normal quietude. mind, as far as intellect went, I never knew anybody to beat old David Gaur of Penllyn.'

Now, to my

O, come, captain, now, that won't do; why, David was half an idiot.'

That may be,' said the captain; I don't say he was clever all round. The finest intellects have a flaw somewhere; but, in his particular way, David was the cleverest man I ever knew.'

'But, indeed, what was his way, captain? I never knew him do anything but run about at fairs, and earn a sixpence where he could.'

'What! did you never hear of David Gaur and the pig-tax ?' 'No, inteet.'

Then you don't know half the traditions of your country. Why, Jones, I, who'm half an Englishman, and have followed the colours half over the world, I'm a better Welshman than you are. Why, I thought everybody knew all about David Gaur and the pigs.'

Tell it to us, captain; tell us the story.'

'You know,' said the captain, hemming and stroking his moustache meditatively, that David had a peculiar gift. How he acquired it, nobody ever knew; it was said he was taught it by old Morris Morris, who lived to be a hundred-and-twenty, and that Morris's father had it from the fairies. But how ever he got it doesn't matter-he had it; and as he never imparted the secret, it died with him. I offered him a sovereign once to show me how he did it, and swore most solemnly I'd keep it a profound secret. But no. I wish I'd bid higher now; it would have been something to fall back upon in one's old age-something that Lawyer Jones couldn't lay his claw upon.'

'But what was it, captain?

What was the secret he had ?'

It was the art of frightening pigs,' said the captain solemnly. 'Ah, now don't go away with the idea that that's nothing. I don't mean startling 'em; any fool with an umbrella can cry Shoo! shoo! and do that. But what I mean is downright frightening them, infecting their very souls with fear, making them mad, so that they'll jump out of their very skins with terror. Now, you know, they're very imaginative beasts, are pigs, and at the same time they're very cunning. They're not to be taken in; and if you were to make all the horrible noises you could put your tongue to, they'd quietly whisk their tails and cock their eyes, and think you a fool for your pains. But this was how David went to work. You know that Penllyn May fair is a tremendous fair for pigs; they all come from the north side of the county, and must cross the bridge over the Dulas to get there at all; and when they've crossed the river, there's a long straight piece of road, with grass on each side of it, and high stone walls beyond the grass. Well, here it was David would take his stand, or seat rather, for he squatted himself down in the grass; and then he made himself a round hole like a basin, a foot deep, at the side of the road; and there he'd sit from early daylight collecting his tax on the pigs. If there were less than ten, he charged a penny, and so on, a penny for every half score. That was David's tax; and a very good tax-gatherer he made; he wasn't always altering it, shoving it up and pulling it down; but he put on a reasonable figure, and stuck to it.'

'But suppose the people wouldn't pay it ?'

That was just what they made up their minds to, one fair-day. The principal pig proprietors held a meeting on Llanfer Green, and

came to a resolution that they wouldn't pay David Gaur any more. You see, his reputation was traditional only; they'd none of them seen his powers exercised; and these modern views of yours, Jones, had got into their heads, I suppose. Anyhow, they came to the resolution, and stuck to it, with fear and trembling. Everybody remarked how beautifully the pigs marched that day from Llanfer Green. There was a good body of them together, and you'd have expected they'd have given some trouble; but no, they walked as orderly as so many Christians, as if they'd made up their minds to show how pigs could behave for once. Well, the bridge was crossed, and the advanced guard of pigs came in front of David's redoubt-the hole he'd dug in the ground. David held out his hat as usual for the toll. The master of the pigs shook his head. "Dim tally. No pay to-day for pig." David understood the thing in a moment, saw through the plan of the revolt. Down went his head into the hole. Gentlemen, it's impossible to describe a noise. If you can imagine the most diabolical din in nature, and then make it twice as bad, you'll have a faint idea of the roar that came out of the hole in the ground.

Where were the pigs ? You must imagine a whirlwind of pigs, a simoon of pigs, a tornado of pigs! Little pigs, big pigs, blue pigs, white pigs, flying about like sky-rockets in every direction. They flew over the stone walls, they dashed over the parapet of the bridge; away they went-away east, west, north, south. In a few moments the country about for miles was spotted with flying pigs. And their masters, David and Morris, and Richard and John, and all the rest of them, where were they? Flying, too, across the country; bursting out their best trousers, barking their shins, and spoiling their gaiters over the stone walls. And what was the use of it? Did you ever try to catch a couple of hundred mad pigs careering across country? The fair was pretty near a failure, I can tell you; only the few people who'd stopped behind, and paid David his toll, and brought their pigs in quietly, they had the pick of the buyers; and through there being so few pigs in the market, they got pretty nigh what prices they liked.

'And then the poor fellows who'd lost their pigs came to David, and begged and besought him, with tears in their eyes, to call the piggie-wiggies back again; and gave him double toll to do it. But I fancy he wasn't as successful at that as he'd been at sending them adrift. Anyhow, after that, he always got his taxes paid in peace and quietness.

Ah, don't tell me,' said the captain, getting up and putting on his hat, of your railroads and nonsense. Where will you find an

other chap like David Gaur ?'

FLAT-FISH TRAWLING OFF THE WIGHT

'I KNOWS, sir, as how we're agoin' to 'ave a regler bucketful of fish to-day,' said Jemmy the Fisher' to me the other morning as we bounded along out of Portsmouth harbour, under the auspices of a brisk sou-westerly breeze, towards St. Helen's, at the easternmost end of the Isle of Wight, where our trawling grounds lay. 'Yes, sir, that we is; agoin' to 'ave a regler bucketful o' fish, and no mistake neither. I knowed it afore I roused up this mornin' and seed the way the wind was a-blowin', right across the Kicker; and I says to my missus, says I, "We're agoin' to 'ave a regler bucketful o' fish." I knows wot I'm about, sir, I does; and I says as you couldn't 'a picked out a finer day for trawlin', no, not if you was to o'erhaul the blessed ould olemenack right through; that you couldn't! We're agoin' to 'ave a regler bucketful of fish to-day, sir, or I'm a Dutchman, and may I never sell another shillin's worth!'

There are, slightly to transpose the French idiomatic expression, buckets and buckets, and fish and fish. What might seem to a cockney sportsman, ignorant of the piscine art as practised in deep waters, a grand haul, almost eclipsing the 'miraculous draught' familiar to us in the indigo-and-vermilion print of distorted drawing and hazy perspective used in the biblical instruction of nascent childhood, may be but a fleabite, so to speak, when compared with the monstrous pilchard and herring catches, and creels of mackerel, to which the brawny seafolk of Devon and Cornwall are accustomed; and so the bucketful o' fish' dreamt of by Jemmy, my fisher friend, might, peradventure, be thought next to nothing of by those who estimate 'sport' by the net weight of its production in pound avoirdupois, or according to the marketable value of its result in current coin of the realm. To such as these I say, Go to. My words are not intended for you. I seek a different audience. The ragged urchin with unkempt hair, and not much to boast of in the matter of breeks, may, when trolling for the lowly sticklebat in some slimy pool, with a bent pin for a hook, a thread for a line, and his rod a twig, experience quite as keen a delight in his captivating pastime as the most ardent disciple of the evergreen old Isaac Walton, got up' regardless of expense with piscatorial paraphernalia, —‘killdevils,' jumping frogs, 'bait extractors,' Cording's boots, and what not, and angling in waters that are strictly preserved ;' whether the latter pursueth the dainty trout-that petit crêvé of fishdom-through the quiet springs and amorous streams of Anglia;

or lieth in wait for the voracious, aldermanic, and capitalistic Bubble-Company-like' pike; or whether he casteth gaudy may-fly snares and whippeth running waters for the gentlemanly, affable salmon, gallant in his Lord Mayor's livery, by the brooks and lochs and burns of Scotia's land 'yon Tweed, or along the meandering, tortuous, rapid rivers of Erin. Go to, O disputator. I would fain lay odds on the youngster's greater capacity for enjoyment any day; consequently, I have little hesitation in stating that Fisher Jemmy' and I probably reaped as fair a return for our expenditure of tissue,' and as satisfactory a quid pro quo on account of our exertions, as we either desired or deserved. At all events, we were satisfied; and, being the parties principally interested, I should like to know what right anybody else has to interfere, disputing my premises and assertions? Quid dicas? Good, you agree? If not, I'm sure it would be a consideration of very slight moment to me; but let that pass, and I'll proceed to tell you what we did and what we caught on our trawling expedition off the Wight. Hæc olim meminisse juvabit.

There is a horribly vagrant feeling connected with the sea. I don't know whether it arises from the buoyant powers of the water, the amount of ozone in the air, the severance from terra firma, or that sense of easy gliding motion, which rocking on 'the cradle of the deep' inspires; but it is my belief, although I may certainly be wrong, that the sea engenders in one the peregrinating disease dubbed by German physics Wandermania.

Whenever afloat I always experience a vagabond, reckless sort of freedom and independence. A monarch-of-all-I-survey pride takes hold of me. I envy nobody, no, not I. I desire to rove and roam wherever sportive fancy may dictate. My chest expands; I breathe rapturously deep draughts of ether. I exclaim, in Byron's morbidities,

'I am as a weed,

Flung from the rock, on ocean's foam to sail,

Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.'

Just so. I felt like that now, as, the sheets being hauled home, the Julia-more power to her weather helm !—lay down to her work, with the wind well abeam.

Stretching out seawards, with the bell buoy' at Spithead well on our lea, we careered past the muffin-shaped harbour forts-long talked of and as yet unfinished, but to be armed anon with bristling rows of teeth, more ominous and potent than those which Cadmus sowed of yore on the plains of Thessaly-that guard our great naval arsenal, in pursuance of patriotic Palmerston's decree. One of these forts, by the way, the one situated close into St. Helen's on the Isle of Wight, had to be taken down again the other day, although almost completed. The foundations were, unfortunately, placed on