was barred into his desk in Upper School by his rowdies, and neatly vaulted over the prison-door, I am not to be told that future bishops and solemn M.P.'s refused to take part in the proceeding. Lord Hatherley, one of the best men that ever lived, at whose death Dean Stanley remarked that he felt as if a pillar of the abbey had fallen, was one of the ring - leaders in the so-called 'rebellion' at Winchester in 1818. I speak with less certainty as to Lord Seaton, peerless amongst Wellington's famous lieutenants, but I think that he, too, worried the headmaster of his time I rather hope so, at all events. It comforts me to think that such great men no more lived up to the ideal of William of Wykeham than we did to that of Bishop Alnwick, who, in advising Henry VI., exhorted him to found 'a solemn school and an honest College of sad priests, and a great number of children to be there at his cost, and freely taught the eruditaments and rules of grammar.' How long did the school keep up its solemnity? How many 'sad priests' were to be found amongst the primeval tugs under Waynfleet? My honest

belief is that the solemn and sad ones would have had a hot time of it with their comrades if they had been found wanting in the orthodox ways of bullying the 'Head,' or niggardly in the purchase of Church Sock' before Mass and Vespers.

THE FLOODS

CHAPTER III.

-TULL, THE LOCK-KEEPER —‘HOPPY' BATCHELDOR-BAGSHAWE, THE FAMOUS SCULLER -AN EXCURSUS ON MR. JUSTICE MAULE.

ETONIANS of my date loathe the very name of a house-boat, the Noah's Ark disfiguring the back-water, which joins the main stream below the railway bridge above the Brocas clump. We miss the punts, too, though there were good reasons for their abolition. In my time there was no bridge between Windsor and old Datchet bridge; the latter was a structure of several arches, each rather narrow; a boat could but just pass through without shifting or shortening oars. Boating below Windsor locks was generally against the rules of the school; but perhaps on this very account the stolen joy was sweeter, and boys of aquatic

tastes were fond of making excursions to the Bells of Ouseley and to Runnymede.

The floods, a severe trial to the elders, were to us a delight. We heard of the trouble they caused, of cellars inundated, of punts needed for transit over what should be dry land; but as these inconveniences did not touch us, we rejoiced in the watery waste. The rise of the waters could be gauged by the woodwork of the locks just opposite the windows of the Fellows' houses in the cloisters. Gradually the river widened, creeping over the Fellows' eyot; then the water would soak through and enter the College garden-a slight rise in the ground and a low wall under the iron railings prevented it from pouring in. The Fellows' flower-garden was frequently covered, for the stream was considerable, even outside the riverbed; the waters fell as rapidly as they rose. We greatly enjoyed the inland ocean, and thought of the Tiber overflowing its banks, and the stanza from Horace, and all the anomalies of the age of Pyrrha :

When whale and porpoise sought the hills,
When fishes hung in trees,

Dislodging doves, while frightened deer

Swam o'er unwonted seas.

The two last lines in the original

Et superjecto pavidæ natarunt

Equore dama’—

were, of course, the subject of a pun from our lower master, Dicky' Okes, who applied the word dame to the various 'dames' in College. Barges often passed along the Windsor Lockcut, which was beyond the natural stream, flowing down from the Masters' Weir; now and again would come a small steamer, a rare novelty in those times.

Tull, the lock-keeper of that day, had a stentorian voice, which in still weather could be heard in the Fellows' buildings, as he shouted to his helper or the bargee, or (it was said by some) scolded his wife. Tull was a privileged being, and when the humour took him, he would address the Fellows and assistant-masters by their surnames or Christian names. It was 'Well, Okes, how are you this morning?' or, 'John George, you 'ad a good dinner on Election Monday-you know you 'ad.' This freemasonry was never indulged in unless the surroundings were perfectly safe; no lower boy, except by accident, ever witnessed such