The Rosery Folk. Fenn George Manville

after eels?”

      “If you like, I’ll lend you a pair of old trousers. I shall.”

      “My dear fellow, I shall be attending you one of these days for paralysis brought on by cold; or spinal – ”

      “Nancy, two big glasses of new milk,” cried Sir James, for they had entered the dairy. “I say, Jack, old fellow, I want to give you a little more of my natural history lecture, because it would be sure to help me on.”

      “I feel,” said the doctor, “as if I had a soft collar round my neck, and was being led about by a chain. There, make the most of me while I’m here, you don’t catch me down again.”

      “Don’t I?” said Sir James. “Why, my dear Jack, Kitty and I have made up our minds to find you a wife.”

      Volume One – Chapter Seven.

      Sir James Catches Cold in the Back

      “And are there any fish in that muddy pond, Monnick?” said Arthur Prayle that morning after breakfast.

      “Oh, sir, yes; you should see them sometimes; great fellows that come up after the bread you throw in. Are you coming to see it emptied?”

      Arthur Prayle looked at his glossy black garments, and then, bowing his head, gravely said, “Yes, perhaps I shall be there,” and he raised his book and went on down the garden.

      His “perhaps” proved a certainty, for when the party started from the house to go across the fields he walked sedately between Aunt Sophia and Naomi, talking softly all the time till they reached the place.

      It was a large pond. How large? Well, about as big as ponds generally are; and it was pretty deep. There were mysterious places beneath the overhanging willows, whose roots hung in the water, where the hooked fish rushed and entangled the lines. There was that awkward spot where the old posts, and wood, and willow poles lay with their ends in the mud, where Sir James caught the great eel that twined himself in and out, and the stout silkworm gut line parted like tinder. There was a deep hole, too, by the penstock, and various linking places where, in the silence of the night, you could hear wallowings and splashings, and now and then a loud suck or smack of the lips as a fish took something from the top of the water.

      On inspection half-a-dozen brawny brown-armed men were found picking and throwing out the earth, and graving a trench in a way that would have made a military engineer long for a few hundred of such fellows to form his earthworks. Deep down they delved till they had cut and laid bare certain pipes in a huge dyke, every foot of which was suggestive of the mysteries of the pond that required so vast a trench to drain off its waters. There was a good deal of speculation rife about that pond, inasmuch as one that was drained by Sir James a couple of years before proved to hold nothing but thousands of great fat newts that swarmed over the mud like alligators in a Florida lagoon. It was said that after all perhaps a carp or two and an eel would be all that were found, but, even as the speculative remarks were made, a shoal of small roach flecked the surface, and it was certain that the result could not be nil.

      It boots not to tell of the way those men worked, as full of interest in the job as any one else, it is enough to say that the pond head was reached at last, the new drain ready, and over the pipe a piece of wire-work placed to stay any fish from passing down; and at last the water was allowed to flow till the pond was a couple of feet lower, the roots of the bank vegetation and the willows bare, and dozens of slimy holes visible, such as would be affected by eels, water-voles, and other lovers of such snuggeries in the banks. Ragged pieces of wood stood out at all angles from the mud and water, the penstock rose up like a model in old oak of Tyburn Tree, kept for the execution of rats; and the great wooden pump, with its platform in the corner where the water-barrels were tilled, trailed its leaden pipe down into the depths like a monstrous antediluvian eel.

      Not so much as a splash to tell that there was anything within the waters rushing away in a flood, down through the alders in an old marl pit hard by. More hours went on and there were no signs of fish. Mud and to spare, and the banks looking slimy and strange. Tangles of wood that had lain at the bottom for years began to show as lower sank the water, revealing pots, old boots, hurdles, and rusty iron, but still no fish of size. Then there was a shout of triumph from one of the men at the sight of a billhook some six feet from the bank, one that had been dropped in years before, when the overhanging willows were being lopped, and there was no Mercury at hand to bring it up transformed to silver or gold. The keen-edged implement was recovered, hardly the worse for its immersion, and, as far as its owner was concerned, the game of draining the pond was worth the candle. But still no fish, and, save in the holes, the water was now only a foot deep. There were indications though, for the simple running of the water off would not have made the remainder so thick, and as some bubbles were seen to rise, one man declared that it was a “girt” eel at work. Another six inches lower, and here and there a dark line could be seen, cutting the muddy water, ploughing as it were along, while behind there came a wavy eddy, and it was evident that these dark lines were the back fins of fish swimming in the shallow pool.

      “They are getting sick,” said John Monnick with a grim smile.

      Certainly if swimming at the top of the water indicated sickness, a number of large fish were very sick indeed, while now that the fact was patent of there being plenty of finny creatures there, the excitement began to grow. The remaining water grew more thick, and here and there the surface was dimpled and splashed by little dark spots where shoals of small fish hurried to and fro. Then as the water grew lower still, there was a cessation of movement, the fish seemed all to have disappeared, and they might have passed down the drain for all there was to see.

      “Rather a boyish pursuit,” said Prayle, who found himself close by the doctor.

      “Thoroughly,” replied Scales; “puts one in mind of old school days. Never enjoyed myself so much in my life.”

      Prayle smiled and turned to Naomi.

      “That fellow’s ancestors must have been eels,” growled the doctor to himself. “Great Darwin! I declare myself converted.”

      “Interested in it, Mr Prayle?” said Naomi, opening her large soft eyes. “Oh, yes, I like to see anything that pleases my cousin.”

      “Ah!” sighed Prayle, “it seems a strange pursuit.”

      “My cousin is so fond of the water,” said Naomi gently.

      “He seems fond of the mud,” muttered Prayle. “Good heavens! how can a man be such a boor?”

      All this while Lady Scarlett was smiling on everybody, and taking intense interest in her husband’s pursuit, seeing that the men had lunch and as much beer as they liked – which was a good deal – but they were working tremendously and as eager as their lord.

      And now preparations were made. Half-a-dozen large tubs were filled with clean water; a strong landing-net was placed at hand, with a couple of buckets, and two or three of the shallow wooden baskets, known as “trucks,” or so-called “trugs.” The next proceeding was for a man to descend into the slime at the head of the pond, and commence a trench, throwing out the mud right and left till he had reached the solid bottom, and thus going on ahead to form, as it were, a ditch through the centre of the hollow, a process which hastened the flow of water and soon set the latest doubt at rest. For before long there was a scuffling and splashing of small fish, roach leaped out, and small bream kept, displaying their silvery sides. Tiny pools formed all over the bottom of the pond, each occupied by its scores of fish, while, in the principal pool, the great carp could be seen sailing slowly and sedately here and there, all singly, save in one instance, where a monster fellow swam slowly in and out with one two-thirds his size close to his side – a regular fishy Darby and Joan. Then lower sank the water, the small fish all splash and excitement, but the great carp as cool and calm as could be, retiring with the water to a pool that grew less and less until, in place of being single and in pairs, they were united into one great shoal that, if not like dogs, as John Monnick said, were certainly suggestive of the backs of so many little pigs swimming quietly to and fro. Lower still the water, and the excitement increasing.

      “What a great carp!” cried the doctor. “Look at his