course by the furious but impotent execrations of the watermen. The boat sank rapidly; and we were still about a hundred yards from the shore when we found ourselves splashing about in the water, which fortunately was not more than up to the armpits of the shortest of us, but so full of strong and tangled seaweed, that swimming was out of the question; and we had to wade slowly and painfully through it, a step on a spot of more than usually soft mud plumping us down every now and then over head and ears. After reaching the shore and shaking ourselves, we found leisure to look in the direction of the _Blue-eyed Maid_, and had the exquisite pleasure of seeing her glide gracefully through the water as she stood down the river, impelled by the fast-freshening breeze, and towing the watermen's boat securely at her stern. There were no means of pursuit; and after indulging in sundry energetic vocables hardly worth repeating, we retreated in savage discomfiture toward Weston, plentifully sprinkling the grass and gravel as we slowly passed along; knocked up the landlord of a public house, and turning in as soon as possible, happily exchanged our dripping attire for warm blankets and clean sheets, beneath the soothing influence of which I, for one, was soon sound asleep. Day had hardly dawned when we were all three up, and overhauling the mud and weeds--the tide was quite gone out--for the captured boat and tubs. They had vanished utterly: the fairies about Weston had spirited them away while we slept, leaving no vestige whatever of the spoil to which we had naturally looked as some trifling compensation for the night's mishap, and the loss of the watermen's boat, to say nothing of the sousing we had got. It was a bad business certainly, and my promise to provide my helpmates with another boat, should their own not be recovered, soothed but very slightly their sadly-ruffled tempers. But lamentations were useless, and, after the lugubrious expression of a dismal hope for better luck next time, we separated.