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The two Thomas Weirs had been at work upon it for a whole day and a half in the first of the cold weather this winter; but it was like putting the new cloth on the old garment, for fresh places had broken out, and although Mrs Tomkins had fought the cold well with what rags she could spare, and an old knife, yet such razor-edged winds are hard to keep out, and here she was now, lying in bed, and breathing hard, like the sore-pressed garrison which had retreated to its last defence, the keep of the castle.
Indeed one of the reforms which the aristocracy made much of in their revolt, and which is granted in Magna Charta, is the destruction of the King's weirs upon the Thames. But the weirs cannot have been permanently destroyed; though the public rights over the river were curtailed by Magna Charta, the system of regulation was founded and endured.
They depend mainly for subsistence upon the salmon, which every summer run into these northern rivers in immense numbers to spawn, and are speared, caught in seines, and trapped in weirs by thousands. These fish, dried without salt in the open air, are the food of the Kamchadals and of their dogs throughout the long, cold northern winter.
Robert Beverley described them in 1705: The Indian invention of weirs in fishing is mightily improved by the English, besides which, they make use of seines, trolls, casting nets, setting nets, hand fishing and angling and in each find abundance of diversion.
How could he know that here, on Pull-an'-be-Damned, within a biscuit's toss of the weirs, Cad Sills had served the same fare to Rackby. He turned and ran, holding her close, and the tide hissed at his heels like a serpent.
"Oh, up at the weir? yes. But I'm out of love with weirs at present. I shudder every time I think of that one up the Thames." "It wasn't pleasant, certainly," said Wraysford. "Pleasant! Old man, if you hadn't been there it would have been a good deal worse than unpleasant. Poor Stee!" "Pull your left, Greenfield senior, or you'll be into the bank!" sung out Paul.
I can recall some few vague facts about flax at Belfast and jute at Dundee. Humph! That trip to Port Duluth was worth a million geography lessons. "To begin with, I learned much about rivers. In England a river is something easily comprehended. You can see along it, and across it, and it is locked, bolted and barred with towns and bridges and weirs and tow-paths.
Still in the same moment I saw that the face disclosed was the face of the other convict of long ago, and white terror was on it. Then I heard a cry, and a loud splash in the water, and for an instant I seemed to struggle with a thousand mill weirs; the instant past, I was taken on board the galley. Herbert was there, but our boat was gone, and the two convicts were gone.
Captain Obed Bangs, who had been spending a week in Orham on business connected with his fish weirs, returned to find the village chanting the praises of the new arrival. Somehow or other E. Holliday had managed already to convey the impression that he was the most important person in creation.
There is but one place left in which one can still reconstruct for oneself the aspect of such weirs as were till but little more than a century ago the universal method of canalising the river. Modern weirs are merely adjuncts to locks, and are usually found upon a branch of the stream other than that which leads up to the lock.
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