h the stratum below them, of three feet high,
is perfectly contented with, discerning every word.

The barges that trade to the Medway are fine, strong sea-boats; their
sailing qualities are excellent, and they are improved every year by a
regatta specially for them, where forty gay-dressed, bluff and burly
craft compete for prizes. In this match the utmost of skill, sharpened
by years of river sailing, is shewn in the wind and tide, and knowledge
of intricate channels, and among such competitors "fouling is fair."

As the yawl glides on the water among hayricks and whetting scythes, one
of these gallant barges floated beside us with the name on its
stern--S.E.C.P.T.E.R.--dubious in import, we allow, whether it means that
the stout matter-of-fact lighter has been christened as a shadowy ghost,
or a royal symbol. The veriest urchin steers her, with a little fat hand
on the heavy tiller twelve feet long, and a hunch of good rye-bread in
his other fist. Now and then he sings out in a thin soprano, "Fayther,
boat's a'ead," and his father, (hidden below), answers deep-toned, from
the cabin, "Keep 'er away, lad." From him I asked, "How old is your
boy?" and the parent's head popped up to see, but it was the child that
smartly answered, "Eight years old." He looked five. Round the next
reach the barge bears down, and shakes her sails in the wind to arrest
progress a little. They have come near home, but not to stop. It is
only their country house, and up steps the bargee mother from out her
small _boudoir_ in the cabin below, and jumping heavily into a boat, she
pulls ashore to where a little girl is meekly waiting ready for
orders--"Get the fish directly, Hagnes," and the daughter runs off
fleetly and back soon, and the mother is speedily aboard again--all this
marketing being done while the barge has been drifting slowly past, and
then her sails are filled to continue the voyage.

Night fell, and the yawl anchored by a soft green field, with the
bowsprit among the rushes. Bright furnaces for lime and plaster works
show here and there around, and they roared and blazed up fitfully with
waving jets of flame, like the iron works in Shropshire, while the
reflections glittered on the river, and reddened long reaches in a glow.
The barges kept streaming by in the dark laden with rich commerce, and
merry, singing crews--a very curious scene. To them the Rob Roy, of
course, looked quite as strange, and one hailed us gruff