"Two," we said, by way of a wild answer.

"Fifty beasts! " returned the captain.
"How many on Friday?"

"Four."

"Thirty-nine!"

"And as fine as that beef on the plate? " I
inquired.

"Ev'ry one," returned the captain, in an
outburst of admiration; adding, " I can't be
messed about wi' a lot o' small butchers,
Must'r Olly."

Leaving the Stourport a little way beliind
us, we caught up to our butty-boat— the
barge in advance— and made a more intimate
acquaintance with one of its men; a cheerful,
playful giant, whom we had observed in
the distance, on many occasions during
the last two days, gamboling upon the
towing-path. He was about six feet three
in height, not very upright in body, although
not more than twenty-eight years of age;
and as red in the face as any North American
Indian. He was dressed in very loose trousers,
the usual heavy boot, and a common white
shirt, which he wore wide open at the chest,
and rolled up above the elbows. Everything
that this giant did was rude, clumsy, violent,
energetic. He never walked quietly by
the side of the horse, but was always
breaking into a loose, straggling run, throwing
his long and powerful legs wildly from
side to side, and making an iron clatter upon
the pathway that denoted an amount of wear
and tear almost equal to the action of a
horse. The giant seemed to have no fear of
a sun-stroke, for he coquetted with it like a
salamander. The burning rays poured down
upon his face and neck, making them shine
like a copper tea-kettle; yet the playful
Titan kept plunging on; every bone in his
body jolting as he went. I do not believe the
horse he was driving was naturally a restive
and refractory animal, except under a strong
sense of physical rivalry, which it felt by
the side of its driver, if it had only been
left alone, it would have gone on quietly!
and steadily enough, after the fashion of its
brother canal-horses; or, with a feeble driver,
it would have submitted with a dignified
grace, conscious of superior strength held
back by an amiable disposition. But the
brawny giant, who was yelling, shouting,
whip-cracking, and war-dancing round its
head, presented the appearance of a foeman;
and the noble animal consequently started
against the bank, and would have butted
its tormentor, if it had not been held back
by the checking power of the towing-
rope. I am afraid that the mixture of the
mariner and the carter, presented in the
person of nearly every boatman, is not conducive
to the proper understanding of the
nature and character of horses.

We left the cheerful giant struggling
with his enemy, and walked on sharply
by the sides of the field-bordered stream. It
was at this moment of our canal-existence
that some demon whispered to Cuddy,
"Have a fowl for dinner." We were never
particularly fond of bacon; and we began to
loathe eggs; for we had had them to eat at
our breakfast, to drink in our coffee, boiled
and fried for our dinner, and there was still
the prospect of them before us for our next
meal. For this reason, if for nothing else, we
cultivated the idea of the fowl, and began to
look sharply about us for the prospect of
realising it. On we wandered for many
miles by the side of the canal, the two barges
following in our rear, glancing carefully
right and left, without coming to any
village or house, and without meeting any
living thing. At last we reached a melancholy
canal-side tavern; where nothing
was to be got but a very thin and sour ale,
and where we were given to understand, in
answer to our anxious inquiries, that in those
parts the common barn-fowl was a bird
almost as scarce as the celebrated dodo.

On again we walked, with increasing
appetites and decreasing hopes, until we
came upon the village of Stoke Brewiu, not
far from the mouth of the celebrated
Blisworth Canal tunnel, through which we were
to pass on board the Stourport. Stoke
Brewin is one small cottage street, with
many outlying barns; a village that does
not covet patronage of strangers. The first
inquiry we made respecting this phantom
fowl, was addressed to an old woman standing
at the door of a thatched hut.

"A vowl, measter? " she asked, in astonishment.
" What, a live vowl?"

"No, ma'am," I said; "a dead fowl, for
cooking."

"Dead or alive," said Cuddy, who was
more desperate.

"I'm sure I doan't know, measter," returned
the old woman; " I doan't think onybody
be havin' such a thing in Stoke. Ye
cen try of Must'r Edwards, at the corner."

The corner alluded to was only a few
yards off, and we made rapidly towards Mr.
Edwards's cottage. There was Mr. Edwards,
a fat man, standing in the low doorway,
shaking his head at us as if we had
been vagrant tramps, or he had never
heard of such a bird as a fowl during
the whole of his village existence. Turning
our backs very quickly upon Mr.
Edwards, we strode along the short street
until we came to the village butcher's, whose
shop was a little larger than the Stourport
cabin, and would not have contained much
animal food if it had been filled to overflowing.
It was as clean as the cage of a wild
beast an hour after feeding-time. Not a scrap
of anything was visible but a piece of suet
the size of a nut, upon which a dozen
ravenous flies and a blue-bottle had settled.
This was a state of things that required
explanation, and we proceeded through the
shop and tapped at the half-curtained door-
window of the back-parlour. This was at