A few weeks later some of the King's men came to the abbey, seized the Abbot, and carried him off to the Tower. Here he was shut up and fed on bread and water, and between this wretched food and his fears of the King's displeasure the poor Abbot had a very hard time.
Then one day a fine sirloin of beef was brought into his cell, and the famished priest leapt to the table and ate like a hungry farmer. In sprang Henry from a private place, where he had been watching his prisoner eat.
"Now, Sir Abbot," cried the King, "down with your hundred pounds, for of a surety I have found your appetite for you." Whereupon the Abbot paid up at once and went home, lighter in purse, but merry at heart to find that the King sought his money and not his head.
OLD FATHER THAMES—II.
Below Reading the Thames becomes "the playground of London." All the summer long its bosom is dotted with boats, and the lawns upon its banks are filled with people who have fled from "town" to rest their eyes on green fields and the shining stretches of cool running water, so delightful after the heat and glare of London.
Many holiday-makers actually live on the river in a house-boat, a broad, flat-bottomed craft upon which a kind of wooden house is built, and moored in the stream. Others traverse the river in a rowing-boat, carrying tents and camping at night in a meadow beside the stream.
Going down-river from Reading, we come to Henley, where the noted regatta is held every year in the first week of July. It is the greatest of all river regattas, and the most famous boat clubs of the world send crews to Henley.
On a fine day of the Henley week the course presents a most striking and brilliant scene. The river is packed from side to side with boats of every size and kind—skiffs, punts, canoes—filled with ladies in pretty summer dresses and men in cool white flannels. The sides of the river are lined with house-boats, each bearing a gaily-dressed crowd and decked with beautiful flowers. Pennons and flags and streamers flutter in the sunshine, and the wonderful mingling of bright colours in the moving crowds on land and water presents one of the gayest and prettiest scenes in the world.
Suddenly a bell rings. Clear the course! A race is about to begin. Now the boats are pulled hastily to the side of the river, where the course is marked off by piles and booms. It seems impossible for the river full of craft to pack itself away along the sides, but in some fashion or other it is managed—skiffs, canoes, and punts all wedged together like sardines in a tin.