highly surprised me, and which brought to my remembrance particular
scenes described in the book which I now generally carried in my bosom.
The country was, as I have already said, submerged--entirely drowned--no
land was visible; the trees were growing bolt upright in the flood,
whilst farmhouses and cottages were standing insulated; the horses which
drew us were up to the knees in water, and, on coming to blind pools and
'greedy depths,' were not unfrequently swimming, in which case, the boys
or urchins who mounted them sometimes stood, sometimes knelt, upon the
saddle and pillions. No accident, however, occurred either to the
quadrupeds or bipeds, who appeared respectively to be quite _au fait_ in
their business, and extricated themselves with the greatest ease from
places in which Pharaoh and all his host would have gone to the bottom.
Nightfall brought us to Peterborough, and from thence we were not slow in
reaching the place of our destination.




CHAPTER IV


Norman Cross--Wide expanse--_Vive l'Empereur_--Unpruned woods--Man with
the bag--Froth and conceit--I beg your pardon--Growing timid--About three
o'clock--Taking one's ease--Cheek on the ground--King of the
vipers--French king--Frenchmen and water.

And a strange place it was, this Norman Cross, and, at the time of which
I am speaking, a sad cross to many a Norman, being what was then styled a
French prison, that is, a receptacle for captives made in the French war.
It consisted, if I remember right, of some five or six casernes, very