THE GOLDEN AGE
knowing that this particular field was to be carried to-day, were revelling in the privilege of riding in the empty waggons from the rick-yard back to the sheaves, whence we returned toilfully on foot, to career it again over the billowy acres in these great galleys of a stubble sea. It was the nearest approach to sailing that we inland urchins might compass: and hence it ensued, that such stirring scenes as Sir Richard Grenville on the Revenge, the smoke-wreathed Battle of the Nile, and the Death of Nelson, had all been enacted in turn on these dusty quarter-decks, as they swayed and bumped afield.
Another waggon had shot its load, and was jolting out through the rickyard gate, as we swung ourselves in, shouting, over its tail Edward was the first up, and, as I gained my feet, he clutched me in a death-grapple. I was a privateersman, he proclaimed, and he the captain of the British frigate Terpsichore, of—I forget the precise number of guns. Edward always collared the best parts to himself; but I was holding my own gallantly,
108
