254
THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
sight of that everlasting church on one side and the chapel on the other. The
skipper, when appealed to upon the subject, provokingly declared that it all
depended on the wind—if a breeze sprang up, the barge would get home, if not,
well, there were plenty of provisions on board, and the company must sleep as
best they could ! At five o'clock, when Maldon was still sixteen miles away, the
President summoned a mass meeting, and by a show of hands ascertained that
eighteen visitors at least must get home, including one or two clergymen, whose
flocks would otherwise be left without a shepherd on the morrow. Under these
circumstances—the special train leaving Maldon at a quarter to nine—it was de-
cided to take the urgent cases up in two small boats. The Mayor and Town Clerk
seized the oars in one, Mr. R. H. Eve and Mr. R. W. Christy in the other, and
Becalmed on the Blackwater, September 15TH, 1888. From a drawing by H. A. Cole.
with a parting cheer the boats went off, and were soon lost in the mist. The more
energetic members of the main party worked hard at the long "sweeps," without
which help the "Rose" would hardly have reached Maldon that night, while
others extemporized a concert to while away the tedium of the adventure. As the
barge slowly drifted into Maldon, nearly fourteen hours after the start, the Mayor
and his Town Clerk (Mr. J. C. Freeman) came on board amid great cheering, the
small boats having been rowed up to the town in time for the passengers to catch
the special train, an athletic feat of which the oarsmen might well be proud. On the
motion of Mr. Shenstone, seconded by Mr. Crouch, a vote of thanks was passed
to the Mayor, with musical honours ; nor was compliment ever better deserved.