AN OYSTER-BED IN DIFFICULTIES.

A GLORIOUS autumnal day had just died a golden death, amidst a flock of fleecy clouds in the far west, when darkness, which had crept stealthily like a wolf upon our heels, surprised us, as we knocked at a small door, of an odd sort of house, that appeared to be standing sentry to a neighbouring village, close to the Kentish coast. We had followed all sorts of paths and sheep-tracks across an ugly marshy district, leaped over ditches, or dykes, as the country folks called them, now and then attempting to make short cuts, which invariably proved long ones, in order to reach a glimmering light, that with ignis fatuus glare had lured us over the marsh to the solitary house above alluded

to.

"Come in," said a voice, as loud and as deep as a report from a double-barrelled thunder-cloud, to our summons for admission. "Come in," and in we went.

There was an air of antiquity about the place, a tone that is imparted only by age, a something breathing of days long past, that gave an appearance of stability and comfort, that set us at our ease at once, and which, when brightened up by the cheerful blaze of a sea-coal fire, formed a happy contrast to the dreary morass, we had so recently crossed. In admirable keeping with the brown, smoke-dried walls of the room, sat three bronzed, weather-beaten old men. Two of these bronzed heads might have served as studies for Hercules and Winter; the one exhibiting a vigorous, and the other a frosty aspect, but in the appearance of the third, there were signs of age and decrepitude, rather more marked than the years he had passed, seemed to warrant. His face was hollow and grim; eyes deep-set, blank, and pale, and overthatched with a white, bushy brow; nose long, and sharp; and jaws skeletonized, and grizzled over from cheek to throat, like a polar bear. His skin had lost its once ruddy hue, and though still without an appearance of sickliness, yet the vicissitudes of his life, assisted by the sun and wind and age, had mellowed it into a fine Rembrandt tan, and furrowed and puckered and knotted him, like the bark of an old tree. The men were ranged round an old-fashioned oak table, and seen by the fitful and uncertain glare of the fire, they seemed to be carved out of the same material. They had, until the moment of our sudden entry, evidently been engaged in some hot dispute, for if we had judged of their numbers by the criterion of sound, we should have said that the whole local population had been collected within the place. A drinking cup was before each, and pipes and tobacco were placed upon the spacious table, and in the distance, looming hazily through the smoke, an inner apartment was discernible, of the close compact and systematic arrangement that denotes a tavern bar. After we had thus hastily scanned the scene before us, and arrived at the happy conviction that we had found an asylum in our hour of need, one of the bronzed heads, which we afterwards discovered to be the property of the landlord, then greeted us, by enquiring,—

Where we came from?

"Did we find our way across the marsh without a guide? and if so,

"Didn't we consider it a mortal wonder we wosn't drown'd?"

We hastened to reply, that we were on a pedestrian tour,-that, guided by the light from the window, we had managed to avoid the catastrophe alluded to, and that moreover, our failing nature had been miraculously supported for the last mile or so, by a most sustaining smell of cooked oysters.

"Ah!" replied the host, "we've just had a stew,—and then his face arranged itself without any difficulty, into a warm, brown tinted smile, as he immediately added, "There's a score or two left."

"Of oysters?

we demanded.

"Of oysters," replied Boniface, looking inquisitively, as much as to say shall I introduce you to the "natives."

We nodded, and at once he commenced an attack upon them, with that peculiar adroitness of wrist, and sudden knowing jerk of the elbow, that proclaims the potent hand of a master.

It was evident that our presence had acted as a damper upon the heat of the argument, that had raged so furiously previous to our entrance. But it was plainly to be seen, by the outward and visible workings of the countenance of our host, that the subject was still disturbing his inner man. After a pause of a minute or so, only occasionally relieved by that peculiar squelch which proclaims the death of a "native," he broke the monotony by suddenly exclaiming,

"Another bad 'un, shrivelled up to a bit of leather," said he, and he dashed the shells violently upon the floor, "that makes the sixth in the last dozen,-there," he continued, " say what you will, I'm more convinced on it than ever, we've never had an oyster in our 'beds ' worth a rope yarn, since the passing of the Reform Bill," and he put on a definitive look, that added, and you have my authority for saying so.

"Humbug!" said the bronzed head, with the wintry aspect, picking up the broken thread of the argument with avidity. "Humbug!" said he, emphatically; "that's what you wos a preachin' about afore the gen'l'mn come in."

"Ah!" groaned Boniface, with the air of a man who has an argument and a delicate piece of cookery to attend to at the same time. "Your head's as muddl'd as the sun in a fog-bank. You don't know how to put things together, you don't,-you see," said he, placing under our nose a steaming dish of his stewed "natives," "you see when our oysters lost their nat❜ral protectors, and our town lost its rights and privileges-"

"The privilege of dredging," we presumed.

"Sartinly," added Boniface approvingly, "and also the privilege, I may say, the blessed privilege of sending two members to represent the interests of the natives' in parliament.'

"Do you mean the freemen, or the oysters," we demanded, in a tone of surprise.

"Well, I believe it never was c'rectly settled which had the preference," replied the host with an air of perplexity.

"Dear me !"

"Ah," rejoined the landlord solemnly, they wos an oncommon blessin' to our borough, surely,-why you'd scercely b'lieve it p'raps, but in those good old times, they supported a mayor, two aldermen, lots of jurats, and a chamberlain, 'sides sending two real ordnance lords to

parliament, and giving us all sorts o' privileges connected with fisheries, anchorage, salvage, ferries, and market tolls into the bargain."

"How came you to lose them?"

"Well, you see," replied Boniface, "them privileges, or whatever you call them, wos the cause of great trouble to the townsfolk,-sowed dissension,-there wos the corp'ration with their interests,—then there wos the freemen with theirs; every man had his own ends to gratify. You see," continued the host, half apologising, as though he was ashamed to admit that the apple of discord had been flung into such a paradise, as his oyster borough was formerly," you see, somehow, the loaves as well as the fishes found their way into the nets of the members of the corporation, and it needs no ghost to tell us, that in time the breach widened,-we held secret meetings, raised an outcry against the old members, and in this way,-a large body of dredgers and the corp'ration wos pulling and hawling at opposite ends of the rope."

Here the other bronzed heads shook mysteriously, with the air of ill-used individuals.

"That wos the beginning of all our troubles," sighed the host. "Indeed!

"Yes, for the corp'ration met at the hall, and twisted up a bye-law among themselves, claiming all sorts of powers, rights, and 'molyments, and binding down anybody they liked, or rather didn't like, from dredging in the beds' at all."

"But we thought the sea was open to all parties."

"P'raps it is, p'raps it isn't," replied Boniface, mysteriously; "that's neither here nor there," and as nobody seemed disposed to dispute the profundity of that remark, he followed it up by stating, that by some odd accident, not included in the doctrine of chances, "the names of the parties forbidden to dredge for oysters, and the names of the parties opposed to the government members, was exactly alike."

"Really! and what did the freemen do ? "

"Do! declared open war against the corp'ration; they determined to have a member independent of any interest 'cept their own, and accordingly, they began to cast about for a man suited to their purpose. Well," continued the host, "all the world knows, that whether it's a lot of gingham umbrellas, the papal aggression,-or an unprotected oyster-bed, the case is all one, there's always lots of idlers fond of fishing in troubled waters, who are only too happy to bring anybody's griefs before parliament, and so, the free and independent Blue dredgers (they had adopted this colour as a symbol of their party, or as expressive of the state of their minds) found a true son of Neptune, with a full purse and warm heart, who was willing to espouse their cause, and lay their troubles before the collective wisdom of the nation. So you see the tables wos turned. The mayor no longer lorded it over us poor dredgers. He'd struck his hardest at us, and we'd warded it off. He counted heads now for the first time, and discovered that the Blues wos a match for his Buffs, and though he tried to starve us into submission, by forbidding us to dredge for our 'stint' of oysters 'cording to use and custom, yet there his blow fell short of the mark, for our new candidate sent us down from London, acres of good Witney blankets, and kept a couple of copper boilers on the simmer right through the winter, with good soup, for any free and independent Blue dredger to ladle as much as he liked.

"Well," resumed our host, as soon as he had surrounded himself in a perfect fog of smoke, "you may be sure there was a precious buzzin' round the cop'ration hive, when they found what the independent dredgers had brought about: but greater events wos a happening ou'side the town than within."

"Indeed!"

"Yes-true as the log; there wos a screw loose in the mayor's seat. It leaked out that the corporation,-the mighty corporation,-though, for the matter of that, they all sprung from the mud of our oyster-beds, -was to be attacked in their stronghold."

"Attacked in what way?"

"Why, for making one-sided bye-laws, to be sure and by a free and independent Blue," replied the host.

"Simple, thoughtless man," murmured we, "to ruin himself by opposing a powerful corporation!"

"Don't you b'lieve it," chuckled Boniface; "Dredger Dodds hadn't one shilling to chink against another. No, he never could a swum through such a sea of troubled water, as a regular built action at law, unless he'd been buoy'd up by some invisible floats. Howsomever, the action wos brought, and the corporation wos 'bliged to defend it, and the expense and trouble they wos put to, curdled their bile, and turned 'em as green and yaller as ring-tailed baboons. 'Sides which, they couldn't hide their spite,--so they fumed and fretted and fizzed away, like so many dying squibs. Well, in coorse, all this fretting and fuming was soon hatched into fighting, and the Blues and the Buffs beat one another into as many colours as the rainbow."

"But who attended to the 'beds' during all this excitement?" we asked.

"Ah, that's it!" replied our host, with a sigh, "that's it!—why, anybody that liked,-for the dredgers wos too busy abusing one another. Well," he continued, after a moment's pause, "Time and a empty cart both travels fast, so, you see, the day at last came round when the cause of the Blue dredgers wos to be tried. It was known all over the world as the great Oyster Cause."

"And what was the result, eh?”

"Well, to ball off the yarn quick, it may be stated that, after four days' veering and hauling, cross-questioning and traversing, and tying the truth up into as many knots, as took the jury the fifth day to unravel, the independent Blues gained their cause, and sent the obnoxious bye-laws to the devil."

How fortunate !" we exclaimed.

"P'raps it wos," replied Boniface, with deliberation. "It might a bin, if we hadn't raised such clouds of ill-will with the wind of our ostentation when we returned home."

What, you didn't forget to triumph?'

Forget to triumph! No. Lor a massy on us, I shall never forget that morning, when we manned our boats, and with colours flying and guns firing, we sailed for the Beds.' D'ye 'member, Culch," said he, addressing the bronze head with the wintry aspect, "how we wos togg'd out in as many styles as a Neptune's gang, in an outward-bound Ingeeman, crossing the line?"

Right well, mate, right well," replied Culch.

And what did you do at the beds?'" we inquired.

"Do!" exclaimed Boniface; "why first, like sensible, poor, hardworking fishermen, we dresses and trims our dredges with hundreds, ay, thousands of yards of blue sarsnet and Terry velvet, 'sides all sorts of streamers and pennants flying about in every direction."

"Well, what then?"

“Then we gave three British cheers, as wos fairly heard miles off, by the crest-fallen corporation crew; then we fired off a lot of guns; and then, when the frenzy was at its height, at a signal from Dredger Dodds, we flung our dredges with their thousands of yards of silk ribbons and streamers, ay, Terry velvet and all, into the sea; and then, I think," said he, "the screech the women gave was sharp enough to set a handsaw."

"But why fling the silks and velvets into the sea?"

"Why, indeed," he replied, with vexation, "cos we was mad with joy and excitement. Well, it's all over now, and we can talk peaceably about it; and though it may look spoony at the present time, yet it wos thought a mighty fine stroke of wisdom then. Well, we hauled our dredges in due time, the silks and ribbons all spoiled, in coorse, but we took our 'stint' of oysters in defiance of the corporation, proving that we had triumphed over their bye-laws. So far all had gone favourably with the Blues," continued the landlord, "and for a whole week after the trial, there wos no mistaking that something extraordinary was a foot in the boro'. Preparations of all sorts wos going on. Booths grew up like mushrooms, 'lection agents wos flirting with dredgers-exciseable lickers running in all directions, like sluices,-tea and grog meetings wos held, where the men wos coaxed with punch and baccey, and the women with souchong and silks,-'sides which, flaring handbills warned the freemen to act like men, 'cos the eyes of Europe

wos on 'em."

"And had the corporation party been idle?"

"Idle, no! they'd brought up all the outvoters, and collected a mob of freemen quite equal to our'n! Well," continued our host, "each party felt sure o' winning; and on the morning of the 'lection day, the two ordnance lords mounted the hustings, linked arm in arm, and looking too high in the instep to wear another man's shoe. But, in coorse, they felt proud of their station, for they 'd a whole board of ordnance to back 'em, and that wasn't no trifle, for it included guns of every calibre down to pistols, 'sides a flight of congreves into the bargain. On the other side of the hustings stood our new candidate, the admiral, a balancing himself on the neatest wooden leg in the world. You see, he'd left his other at Nav'rino, but it would a puzzled a reg'lar built doctor to have found it out, for he 'd glued on a Blucher,' rigged his trousers down, well over all, and wore straps. Well, he didn't want supporters, you may be sure, for 'sides his own Blues, he'd a cargo of lawyers from London, and lots of 'lection agents and committeemen."

"Spirited contest," we presumed, "each devoted to his party." "Never seed such devotion in my life," replied the host, "specially when two large barrels of ale wos rolled into the town by the admiral's orders. Talk of fun, there never wos any like that which followed the staving-in of the heads of them barrels, and when every body wos invited to drink."

"And in the midst of this riot the election began?"