THE CASK ASHORE.(1807).
I.
RUM FOR BOND.
At the head of a diminutive creek of the Tamar River, a little above
Saltash on the Cornish shore, stands the village of Botusfleming; and
in early summer, when its cherry-orchards come into bloom, you will
search far before finding a prettier.
The years have dealt gently with Botusfleming. As it is to-day, so--
or nearly so--it was on a certain sunny afternoon in the year 1807,
when the Reverend Edward Spettigew, Curate-in-Charge, sat in the
garden before his cottage and smoked his pipe while he meditated a
sermon. That is to say, he intended to meditate a sermon. But the
afternoon was warm: the bees hummed drowsily among the wallflowers
and tulips. From the bench his eyes followed the vale's descent
between overlapping billows of cherry blossom to a gap wherein shone
the silver Tamar--not, be it understood, the part called Hamoaze,
where lay the warships and the hulks containing the French prisoners,
but an upper reach seldom troubled by shipping.
Parson Spettigew laid the book face-downwards on his knee while his
lips murmured a part of the text he had chosen: "_A place of broad
rivers and streams .
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