t caime a stout lad of about
eighteen to lead the gang. Three of us clubbed our rods over them,
briking the top joints, of course, but Wickens wouldn't fall in with us.
So Boots ran after him, followed by a crowd. When Wickens sawr he
couldn't escype, he opened his can, took out an eel and slapped it over
Boots' fyce. The beggar just yelled, 'O, Lawr, water snykes!' and he
ran, and Wickens after the crowd like mad, slashing 'em with the water
snykes. O dear, O dear, I shall never forget those snykes to my dying
dy."

"Are there any water snakes in our rivers in Canada?" enquired Mrs. Du
Plessis.

"Oh yes, ma'am," answered the fisherman, "I imagine those lykes we are
going to visit this afternoon are pretty full of snykes. Mr. Bulky,
whose nyme is known to Mr. Coristine, I'm sure, wears long waterproof
boots for wyding in the Beaver River--"

"But, Mr. Bigglethorpe," asked the fair questioner, "how can one ride in
a river?"

"Excuse me, ma'am, I did not say riding, I said wyding, walking in the
water. Mr. Bulky was wyding, one morning, with rod in hand, when, all of
a sudden, he felt something on his leg. Looking down, he sawr a big
black water-snyke coiled round his boot, and jabbing awy at his leg. It
hung on to him like a boa-constrictor, and squeezed his leg so tight
that it gyve him a bad attack of gout. He had to get on shore and sawr
it in two with his knife before the snyke would leave go. Fortunately,
the brutes are not venomous, but that beggar's teeth scratched Mr.
Bulky's boots up pretty badly, I must sy."

When they rose from the table, Miss Carmichael went up to the lawyer and
said: "Please forgive me for punishing myself between Mr. Bangs and Mr.
Bigglethorpe. I sigh for good English." The lawyer answered, all
unwittingly, of course, in his worst brogue: "Miss Carrmoikle, it's my
frind Wilks I'll be aafther gitten' to shtarrt a noight school to tayche
me to shpake Inglish in aal its purity." To this there could be but one
response: "Go away, you shameful, shameless, bad man!" It pleased the
lawyer better than a more elegant and complimentary remark.

CHAPTER XIII.

Walk to the P.O.--Harding's Portrait--The Encampment
Besieged--Wilkinson Wounded--Serlizer and Other Prisoners--No
Underground Passage Found--Bangs and Guard Remain--The Constable's
New Prisoners--Wilkinson a Hero--The Constable and Maguffin--Cards.

There was no room for twenty persons in two waggons, yet t