hrase) pulling their insides out for nort. The prize-money is pooled
and divided among all the competitors. In consequence, the races are
rowed and sailed with great dignity, and many of the visitors excite
themselves halfway to delirium over the extreme--the make-believe
closeness of the finishes. It is not very sporting perhaps, but
indulgence in the sporting spirit is for those who can afford it. The
Seacombe fisherfolk can't.

A confounding number of the Widger family and its connexions arrived by
boat, road and rail. Two or three grand teas were provided one after
the other. Mrs Widger--looking really very young, alert, and
pretty--packed the children off to the beach with gentry-cakes in their
hands. Well she did so, for every chair in the kitchen was occupied by
some relative, and the display of best clothes was most alarming. Worst
of all, one party had brought the family idiot--a simpering, lollopy
creature, stiff in the wrong places, who could not feed himself
properly. With a vigorous tapping of the forehead, he was pointed out
to me. "He's a little deeficient, you know, sir--something lacking."
The idiot, finding himself the centre of attraction, fairly crowed with
delight. "Ou-ah!" he went. "Ou-ah! ou-ah!"

On the pretext that a boat wanted hauling up, I escaped, with a piece
of bread and jam in my hand, like the children.

A man of slightly unsober dignity accosted me in the Gut, and asked if
Jim somebody-or-other was within. "Him and me don't speak, nor eet
meet," he explained. "I won't hae nort to do wi' he, nor enter the
house where he is, for all we be related.--Come an' have a drink 'long
wi' me, sir; now du; I asks 'ee.--'Tis safer, yu know, for us not to
meet."

For the second time I lied, and escaped.

[Sidenote: _THE VETERANS' RACE_]

Uncle Jake ran up from the beach. "Yer!" he said, "there's a race to
Saltmeadow, a veteran's race, for men over fifty. Yu come wi' me, an'
I'll go in for it--an' beat the lot, I will. I knows I can." Off we
went, Uncle Jake in a high excitement. At the centre of the big oblong
ring, two clean-built jumpers, men in the heyday of their strength,
were making a local record for the high jump. Uncle Jake shouted out
praise and sympathy to them. We found our way to where the veterans
were grouped together, encouraging each other to enter with much foul
language--which made them feel young again, no doubt. What a lot they
were! some aged to thinness, others become fa