Waiving all prelude, he picked up the thread It happened along of this old silver orook. I call it silver 'cos it shines so far. My wife can see it over at Ovingdean When I'm on Telscombe Tye. They doan't mek crooks To shape 'em. That's what they French papists knowed My crook, to carry in church. But I woan't sell 'en. I've heard there's magic in a crook like this, White magic. Well, I rackon it did save Dick More ways than one, that night, from the old Black Ram. It med him laff, too. 'Sing it again,' he says, Bramble cleared his throat, Spat at a bee, leaned forward on his crook, "The Devil turns round when he hears the sound One orack, I rackon, from this good orook I loaned 'em a loanst o' my crook one day They'd buy 'en to show in their church, they say; I never should find a crook so slick, And, if you talk to Drunken Dick, You'll find him spannelling round the Plough; He'd drink enough to draown a cow, And roughen a tiger's tongue. He'd drink Black Ram till his neäse turned blue, And the liddle black mice turned white. You ask 'en what my crook can do, He says, as through the fern he ran He says it took his arm that night, He shook it off and, rambling round, He heers a kin' of sneering sound Which reared upright, then said out loud When Drunken Dick is hanged.' I rackon 'twould take a barrel of ale, To mek me see the very nex' thing For first he thought 'twas elephants walked And then he saw fower ricks of straw That heaved against the sky. He saw 'em lift. He saw 'em shift. He saw 'em slowly lumbering down And, as he ran, he heer'd 'em say, 'This warld will never be bright and gay And then as Dick escaped again And squirmed the churchyard through, The cock that crowns the weather-vane Cried, 'How d'ye doodle doo ?' 'Why, how d'ye doodle doo?' says Dick, 'I know why you go round.' 'There'll be no luck,' that rooster shruck, 'Till Drunken Dick be drowned!' And then, as Dick dodged round they barns, He meets Himself, with the two black horns, 'Walcome! waloome!' old Blackamoor oried, So I think I'll have your kidneys, fried, Then Diok he loosed a tarr'ble shout, And the sheep-bells rang, and the moon came out, And it shone on my silver orook. 'I rackon,' says Dick, 'if you're oald Nick, You'd batter be scramblin' home; For those be the ringers of Arundel, And that is the Poape of Roame."" PIG ISLAND. BY "AL KHANZIR." THERE is an island on the Ganges, lying far off the beaten track, a little insignificant island only a mile or two in length and about half as broad, a mere sandbank covered with grass and tamarisk; but it is dearer to my heart than almost any other spot on earth, for what memories it brings back of joyous days and of good friends, man and horse, memories for the most part of those we shall not meet again till the Happy Hunting Grounds are reached. "Pig Island"-for so this island is well named-lies in the country of the most famous Indian Tent Club,1 and a more ideal home for pig could not be found. Just let me try to describe this Kadir country for those who have not had the luck to know it-the "Kadir" being, of course, the name given to the whole wide riverbed which has been scored across the bosom of Hindustan by the ever-changing course of Mother Gunga through the ages. Let us ride together, reader, you and I, and mark the varying country through which we pass to reach a Tent Club Meet at Pig Island. From our cantonments at M-, camp in the Kadir lies some thirty-five miles away. A metalled road runs for the first twelve miles out of can tonments. Beyond that again a road does indeed exist, but it is the sort of road that even a Ford would hesitate to tackle; so, for anybody who respects the innards of his oar, there is nothing for it on the onward journey but to hack-unless, indeed, you would prefer to drive in a country tumtum,2 and to suffer a long-drawn-out agony of cup-and-ball, which, once experienced, will never be repeated. It is an afternoon in early spring, and we have reached the point where we must leave the car. Primitive though it is, the onward road we follow is one of some importance as the direct connecting link between the headquarters of the two oivil districts of Mand B, lying some forty miles apart. Libelleus tradition has it that, during the régime of a very celebrated civil servant still fortunately with us, though in a much exalted capacity-the project of metalling this road throughout was seriously discussed, but that he successfully opposed the scheme, ostensibly en grounds of soundest policy, but in reality in order that his favourite snipe-shoot, which lies in this direction, should not thus become accessible to all and sundry. A Tent Club corresponds to a Hunt; the Hon. Secretary to the Master. 2 A two-wheeled cart. However little truth there may be in this yarn, certain it is that Pig Island owes much of its charm and much of the sport it shows to its inaccessibility; and though at the close of a Meet in June we may sometimes curse the weary miles as we hack home, still we all join with the ryots of the district in venerating the memory of a Collector1 whose spacious methods appealed to the sporting instincts alike of brown and white. - We find our horses waiting beneath a tree beside the road, and in five minutes they are saddled, and we are off on our steady hack towards the still distant river. It is a pleasant ride, for the weather is still cool, and the track is soft and sandy, and well shaded by a double row of trees. It leads us across a level plain, studded with villages and smiling with crops a rich land, watered by a multitude of canal-distributaries. Here every square yard is eultivated, and the bright emerald of rising wheat, and the golden gleam of hemp and mustard, blend into the darker masses of the mango-topes, those billowy groves of mighty fruit trees, often many acres in extent, where every tree is spaced and lined with mathematical regularity, and the shady aisles beneath, carpeted with flowers and musical with running water, are pregnant with promise of shelter and of coolth. At the outskirts of a village we stop beside a well to water our horses, and, seated on its broad cemented brim, smoke a contemplative cigarette. Towards us - down the vista of mingled light and shade, and through the golden haze of floating dust-motes-rides an ancient grey beard on a sickle - hooked chestnut tat. He dismounts stiffly beside the well, and with a courteous salute sets about watering his pony. But a friendly greeting from us in return, and a question about the local crops, soon break down his reserve, and he begins to yarn to us as only such an old worthy can. A Jat this, belonging to as stout a class of yeoman farmers as any in India,-than whom none have done better service in the War,-and he tells proudly of the number of recruits his village sent, till hardly a man was left, and of his own grandson who, twice wounded in Mesopotamia, has now been taken as orderly by his colonel. And then he asks the latest news of the Punjab, expressing supreme contempt for the instigators of the recent outrages. This subject brings him back to his stock topic, the Great Mutiny-that vast upheaval of his childhood which he can just remember, and about which, after the manner of old Caspars the world over, he loves to hold forth to any long-suffering audience. So he points out a lofty peepul-tree in the distance, and smacking his lips over the details, tells the tale of the hanging he there witnessed some 1 Civil official in charge of a district, |