Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/116

108  of action on the part of the woman when riding in this style, many amusing facts might he told; such, for instance, as the sudden giving way of the straps, one on each side, by which alone the pillion was secured to the saddle, and so kept in its place. I recollect an instance of this occurring to a lady who was riding behind her brother up Lincoln Hill, and who suddenly found herself seated on the road, the pillion and its occupant having slipped over the tail of the horse, and reached the ground without much disturbance. Many stories used also to be told of men evidently not much interested in their partners, who arrived at the end of their journey minus the lady, yet all unconscious of having dropped her by the way.

There is at present sitting in parliament—or there was a little while ago—a very wealthy and influential gentleman of whom it was said that he obtained his first gold watch in the following manner. His mother, a widow, kept the purse, and she held the strings so tightly, that her son, even on attaining to years bordering upon manhood, after repeated efforts, was unable to prevail upon her to grant him the boon of a gold watch. So, one day, he took his mother out for a ride. They kept no carriage then, and indeed a carriage would have been of little use in places where the roads were often barely passable for horses. In the neighbourhood where they lived there was a long lane, remarkable for its depth of stiff, wet clay, abounding in holes and pools of mud. The son made choice of this lane for his ride with his mother behind him on her pillion; and having picked his way with many plunges, half the length of the lane, so that the difficulty of returning would be as great as that of going forward, he came to a dead halt, and deliberately stated his case to his mother, declaring that if she did not promise him the gold watch, he would then and there set her down in the lane, leaving her to get out of it as she could. The poor lady having no power to help herself, made the promise, which, there can be no doubt, would be faithfully kept; but whether she ever ventured upon a pillion behind her son again, the story does not say.

O, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream

My great example, as it is my theme!

Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull;

Strong without rage, without o’erflowing, full.

Cooper’s Hill.

the River Thames, notwithstanding all its metropolitan impurities; but it is most to be admired when it assumes the character of a rural river, reflecting many beautiful objects on its banks, and sparkling as it gently flows between verdant meadows. Here we may see in summer cattle cooling themselves in the shallows—always a pleasing sight. Sometimes, for want of a bridge, cows may be seen leaving a farmyard, morning and evening, and swimming across the river to their pastures on the opposite side, which they are taught to do from their calf-hood, and returning regularly to be milked. Then, among the rural sights, are to be seen numerous swallows flying or skimming over the surface of the stream. Here and there a beauteous kingfisher darts into it and emerges with a small fish in its beak, settling on some decayed branch of a tree to feed on it. A heron is now and then disturbed from its solitary watchings for a stray eel or frog, and takes its silent flight to some other locality. The soft and pleasing song of the willow-wren is heard in the small aits or islands as we pass along the river, while the lark carols sweetly in the upper regions of the sky. But the great interest to be derived from passing along the river is to be found in the many historical associations connected with its banks.

We have Runnymede at the foot of St. George’s Hill—

Where England’s antient Barons, clad in arms,

And stern with conquest, from their tyrant king,

Then render’d tame, did challenge and secure

The Charter of her freedom.

In the village of Chertsey the celebrated Abraham Cowley, one of my favourite poets, passed his latter life. The former part of it he had spent in supporting the Royal cause during the Civil Wars as far as he was able. When the country became settled he retired, at the age of forty, to his village, from whence nothing could again draw him into the bustle of the world. He had always Virgil’s Georgics in his hands, which enlivened his favourite pursuits of husbandry and poetry.

Ingenious Cowley! courtly, though retired:

Though stretch’d at ease in Chertsey’s silent bowers,

Not unemploy’d, but finding rich amends

For a lost world in solitude and verse.

Near Chertsey, or rather lower down the river, we have the Cowey Stakes, the place where Julius Cæsar is supposed to have crossed the Thames in his march out of Kent. This part of the river takes its name from the stakes which the natives drove into it in order to stop the progress of the