CHAPTER XVI.

THE COURT OF SEWERS AT THE "SWAMPSHIRE ARMS."

ABOUT two years after Nugent's marriage, there was an effort made by the tenant-farmers in the neighbourhood of Okenham to induce their landlords to improve the drainage of the marshes extending between that place and the Rentworth hills. A couple of wet seasons had in some degree opened the eyes of the agricultural community to the disadvantage attending the cultivation of undrained and swampy land. To drain the marsh by the new-fashioned pipe-drainage was impossible, without procuring a better outfall to the sea than the little stream which flowed through the level could at present boast of.

But here there was some difficulty. A certain Court, called the "Court of Sewers," sat with great solemnity at stated intervals at the "Swampshire Arms," Rentworth, for the ostensible purpose of looking after the drainage of the level. This court was composed of commissioners selected from the magistrates, clergymen, attorneys-at-law, &c., residing in the neighbourhood. Now, the law of sewers is complex. The statutes referring to it date back, to speak comprehensively, to the dark ages. The commissioners' powers are in some respects too limited; in others wrapped in obscurity. Explanatory treatises have been published, but the enterprising student is apt to exclaim with Mr. Dangle, in Sheridan's Critic, "The interpreter is the most difficult to be understood of the two!" We need scarcely say, then, that, to the great majority of commissioners, the law of sewers under which they act and by which they are supposed to be guided, remains to this day little better than a sealed book.

The commissioners of sewers in the district of Okenham were not superior to the generality of their class. And indeed one or two of them, if asked a question on the law of sewers, would pleasantly poke you in the ribs, and ask you"How in the world should they know anything about the

matter?"

In the Court of Sewers held at Rentworth no regular surveyors were appointed to view the state of the ditches, rivers, and sea-defences, and report thereon to the commissioners. For the sake of economy, a jury of farmers was

intrusted with this important duty. Now the district of Okenham was divided into two: one part very wet, and one part only moderately wet. These were denominated the "wet" and the "dry" level, whilst the happy expedient was adopted of appointing the farmers of the wet level to view the dry level, and the farmers of the dry level to view the wet. There was, therefore, a perpetual warfare between the two juries, of the most alarming description. If the "wet jury reported an unusual number of "dry" farmers to the Court of Sewers to be fined for neglecting their duty, next year a terrible retribution was exacted by the dry" jury. Prodigious was the uproar at the Court of Sewers when this return match between the two juries was played out, amidst discordant shouts from all quarters of the room, the frantic knocking of the chairman's hammer, and the mutual dissatisfaction of all parties.

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We have omitted one great object of a Court of Sewers. This is the general promotion of sociability in the district. What we have hitherto described may not have struck the reader as especially favourable to this object. But we will now proceed to part of the proceedings bearing on this point, without which we fear the whole system of Courts of Sewers would totter to its fall, and half England be in danger of submersion beneath the waters of the ocean and the streams from the hill-sides. This department, then, of Courts of Sewers' business consists of a plentiful dinner, served up hot, with abundance of ale, and for those who like it, wine or brandy. This concluding scene of the play has a very healing effect on the minds of the performers. Those who have been fined feel the fines go down easily, as an unpleasant pill yields to the gentle impetus of black-currant jam. Those who have quarrelled feel their anger melt away. Those who have been "bored" by the length of the proceedings, revive. Those who have been dozing, awake. Even the "wet" and dry" juries are seen hand-and-glove over their beef and beer, and rival each other in their devotion to the draining of pewter-pots in lieu of marshy land.

To return, however, to the more immediate subject of this chapter the improvement of the outfall of the little river which received all the drainage of the Okenham level.

The first landowner to put the thing in motion was the Marquis of Swampshire, of whom Nugent rented that part of his farm which was not his own freehold. Now the Marquis

of Swampshire was himself put in motion by Nugent, whose lands abutted on one side of the river for a mile or so until it reached the sea. The Marquis went to work in a dégagé sort of manner, doing the thing irrespective of the Court of Sewers; but had not proceeded far, when his agent wrote him word that he was heavily fined by the court, and all the works must be stopped or the fine would be repeated every day until they were. This rather angered the Marquis, who drove in state to the next Court of Sewers, in a coach-and-four with two outriders, to inquire what the commissioners could possibly mean. He was received with the most deferential alacrity; and the room being immensely crowded, insomuch that here and there two commissioners were sitting upon one chair, and the dense swarm of honest-looking, broad-faced farmers clustered close up to the table at which the chairman was sitting, his lordship was allowed the privilege of an open window, where he was enabled to watch the proceedings with his head and shoulders out of the room and the rest of his person in the room. He had come rather disposed to astonish the natives by rebuking them for their pig-headedness in obstructing works of improvement. But in five minutes his head was in such a whirl from the clamour of the assemblage, that he began to meditate accidentally falling out of the window, feigning severe injury, and retiring in his coach to the adjoining county.

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'Now, then," exclaimed the chairman of the Court of Sewers, a good specimen of the English country gentleman, with a handsome, intelligent face, and a good voice, "Jonathan Sludge !-where's Jonathan Sludge?"

"Mr. Jonathan Sludge, of Cockleton. Dry level!" echoed the clerk, in rather a shrill, whistling kind of voice. "Call Mr. Jonathan Sludge!"

"Here, Sludge! Sludge!! Sludge!!!" shouted a dozen farmers all at once, each louder than the other.

"Joney, you be wanted, my boy; and, my eye, aren't you going to catch it!" added a stout grazier.

66 Come, man, it'll not help thee to skulk home to thy old woman. Thee'lt get as good there as here!" remarked a patriarchal with his hands in his breeches' pockets. yeoman, This evoked a roar of laughter from the crowd, and "order! order!" in a bass voice from the chairman, and a treble from the clerk.

Mr. Jonathan Sludge, meantime, with looks of deep resent

ment and disgust, approached the table of the commissioners.

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Oh, Mr. Sludge!" began the chairman, "you are"How be 'ee?

Sludge, how be 'ee?" here interrupted one of the commissioners-a well-to-do yeoman, living on his own property.

Order! order!" exclaimed the chairman, hoarsely. "Order, order, or-der!" cried the clerk, feebly.

"Hold up thee head-Sludge-and don't look ashamed of theeself! Tain't the first time thee'st made a fool of theeself, nor it won't be the last, Farmer Sludge!" shouted, in stentorian voice, a huge farmer from the crowd. Shouts, calls to order, and more laughter followed, and were only quelled by the chairman's rapping the table with his hammer a sufficient time to have driven home the nails of a good-sized coffin.

Silence being once more restored, the chairman proceeded, "Jonathan Sludge!"

"Here I be, Mr. Cheerman. What dost want with I, Mr. Cheerman ?"

Jonathan Sludge! You're fined ten shillings for not mowing the weeds on your side of the river."

Well, I'm blessed!" exclaimed Sludge, with solemn amazement.

"That's a lie—and thee know'st it, Joney!" cried the stout grazier. More laughter, more shouts, more hammering at the table.

"You're fined ten shillings for not doing your river-work -do you hear, Mr. Sludge?"

"What fur?"

"Why, for not doing your river-work, I tell you."

"Well, did ye ever hear the likes o' that, lads? I not do my river-work! Blessed if my work aint better done than ever any fool's in the wet level 'twixt this and Rentworthblessed if it aint !"

Wrathful exclamations, retorts, and defiant shouts from various parts of the room, mingled with loud applause from the dry-level men.

"Call the foreman of the jury!" exclaimed the chairman. "The foreman of the wet jury !" reiterated the clerk. There was a long pause, and at length the chairman exclaimed

"Where is that foreman? It's too bad! I tell you what, gentlemen, if this goes on, we must have paid surveyors; we

must, indeed-positively we must! Where's the foreman, I Say ?"

66 Why, here be I, Mr. Cheerman. Here I be where I ought to be, in my shoes!" abruptly replied an elongated gipsy-looking man, who had been standing opposite to the commissioners for the last ten minutes.

"Oh, there you are! Well, Mr. Foreman, Mr. Sludge says his work was done, and that he ought not to be fined." "And I say Sludge's work was not done," vociferated the foreman.

"Thou liest! It war," rejoined Sludge.

"Well, Mr. Foreman, are you sworn?" "Yes, Mr. Cheerman."

"Well, was his work done or not?"

"It warn't, Mr. Cheerman."

"I tell thee-it be done, and well done, too!" shouted Sludge.

"Ay, but it wasn't done when we seed it," put in another of the jury.

"I tell thee it war!" persisted Mr. Sludge, mumbling a mouthful of curses between his teeth, as if he found it consolatory.

"Sludge, you're fined ten shillings!" pronounced the Chairman.

"Will you pay, Mr. Sludge? or do you prefer further proceedings?" asked the clerk, with an insinuating smile, as if, on the whole, he thought Sludge had better take the latter line.

Sludge, with an oath, declined either alternative, and privately avowing his intention of emigrating to the "diggings," left the room to get refreshment at the bar, from whence he speedily returned with the money in his hand, rather to the discomfiture of the clerk.

After other business was transacted, the Marquis of Swampshire's affair came on.

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"You see, my lord," courteously observed the chairman, we remit the fine. That was merely a form. But if you wish this new cutting to be made, the provisions of the Act must be complied with."

"I wish," said the marquis, rather languidly, for he was getting oppressed-"I wish you'd take this bothering affair off my hands. Here are the maps, levels, and specifications. There's my agent. And there's Mr. Nugent-how are you,