"I like him," said Dexter to himself, as he hurried down the garden,
found the place, and for the next ten minutes he was busy fitting up his
tackle, watching a boy on the other side of the river the while, as he
sat in the meadow beneath a willow-tree fishing away, and every now and
then capturing a small gudgeon or roach.
The river was about thirty yards broad at this spot, and as Dexter
prepared his tackle and watched the boy opposite, the boy opposite
fished and furtively watched Dexter.
He was a dark, snub-nosed boy, shabbily-dressed, and instead of being
furnished with a bamboo rod and a new line with glistening float, he had
a rough home-made hazel affair in three pieces, spliced together, but
fairly elastic; his float was a common quill, and his line of so many
hairs pulled out of a horse's tail, and joined together with a
peculiarly fast knot.
Before Dexter was ready the shabby-looking boy on the other side had
caught two more silvery roach, and Dexter's heart beat fast as he at
last baited his hook and threw in the line as far as he could.
He was pretty successful in that effort, but his cork float and the shot
made a loud splash, while the boy opposite uttered a chuckle.
"He's laughing at me," said Dexter to himself; and he tried the
experiment of watching his float with one eye and the boy with the
other, but the plan did not succeed, and he found himself gazing from
one to the other, always hurriedly glancing back from the boy to the
float, under the impression that it bobbed.
He knew it all by heart, having many a time drunk in old Dimsted's
words, and he remembered that he could tell what fish was biting by the
way the float moved. If it was a bream, it would throw the float up so
that it lay flat on the water. If it was a roach, it would give a short
quick bob. If it was a perch, it would give a bob, and then a series of
sharp quick bobs, the last of which would be right under, while if it
was a tench, it would glide slowly away.
But the float did nothing but float, and nothing in the way of bobbing,
while the shabby boy on the other side kept on striking, and every now
and then hooking a fish.
"Isn't he lucky!" thought Dexter, and he pulled out his line to find
that the bait had gone.
He began busily renewing it in a very _nonchalant_ manner, as he was
conscious of the fact that the boy was watching him keenly with critical
eyes.
Dexter threw in again; but there was no bite, and as the time went on,
it seemed as if all the fish had been attracted to the other side of the
river, where the shabby-looking boy, who fished skilfully and well, kept
on capturing something at the rate of about one every five minutes.
They were not large, but still they were fish, and it was most
tantalising to one to be patiently waiting, while the other was busy
landing and rebaiting and throwing in again.
At last a happy thought struck Dexter, and after shifting his float
about from place to place, he waited till he saw the boy looking at him,
and he said--
"I say?"
"Hullo!" came back, the voices easily passing across the water.
"What are you baiting with?"
"Gentles."
"Oh!"
Then there was a pause, and more fishing on one side, waiting on the
other. At last the shabby boy said--
"You're baiting with worms, ain't you?"
"Yes."
"Ah, they won't bite at worms much this time o' day."
"Won't they?" said Dexter, putting out his line.
"No. And you ain't fishing deep enough."
"Ain't I!"
"No. Not by three foot."
"I wish I'd got some gentles," said Dexter at last.
"Do you!"
"Yes."
"Shall I shy some over in the box?"
"Can you throw so far?"
"Yers!" cried the shabby boy. "You'll give me the box again, won't
you?"
"Yes; I'll throw it back."
The boy on the other side divided his bait by putting some in a piece of
paper. Then putting a stone in his little round tin box, he walked back
a few yards so as to give himself room, stepped forward, and threw the
box right across, Dexter catching it easily.
"Now, you try one o' them," said the donor of the fresh bait.
Dexter eagerly did as was suggested, and five minutes after there was a
sharp tug, which half drew his float below the surface.
"Why, you didn't strike," said the boy sharply.
"Well, you can't strike 'em till you've got hold of them," retorted
Dexter; and the shabby-looking boy laughed.
"Yah!" he said; "you don't know how to fish."
"Don't I! Why, I was taught to fish by some one who knows all about
it."
"So it seems," said the boy jeeringly. "Don't even know how to strike a
fish. There, you've got another bite. Look at him; he's running away
with it."
It was no credit to Dexter that he got hold of that fish, for the
unfortunate roach had hooked itself.
As the float glided away beneath the surface, Dexter gave a tremendous
snatch with the rod, and jerked the fish out of the water among the
branches of an overhanging tree, where the line caught, and the captive
hung suspended about a foot below a cluster of twigs, flapping about and
trying to get itself free.
Dexter's fellow-fisherman burst into a roar of laughter, laid down his
rod, and stamped about on the opposite bank slapping his knees, while
the unlucky fisherman stood with his rod in his hand, jigging the line.
"You'll break it if you don't mind," cried the shabby boy.
"But I want to get it out."
"You shouldn't have struck so hard. Climb up the tree, get out on that
branch, and reach down."
Dexter looked at the tree, which hung over the water to such an extent
that it seemed as if his weight would tear it from its hold in the bank,
while the water looked terribly deep and black beneath.
"I say," cried the shabby boy jeeringly; "who taught you how to fish!"
"Why, old Dimsted did, and he knew."
"Who did!" cried the boy excitedly.
"Old Dimsted."
"Yah! That he didn't. Why, he's been in the House these ten years--
ever since I was quite a little un."
"Well, I know that," shouted back Dexter. "He taught me all the same."
"Why, how came you to know grandfather!" cried the shabby boy.
Dexter ceased pulling at the line, and looked across at his
shabbily-dressed questioner. For the first time he glanced down at his
well-made clothes, and compared his personal appearance with that of the
boy opposite, and in a curiously subtle way he began to awake to the
fact that he was growing ashamed of the workhouse, and the people in it.
"Yah! you didn't know grandfather," cried the boy mockingly; "and you
don't know how to fish. Grandfather wouldn't have taught you to chuck a
fish up in the tree. You should strike gently, like that."
He gave the top of his rod a slight, quick twitch, and hooked a
good-sized roach. Dexter grinning to see him play it till it was feeble
enough to be drawn to the side and lifted out.
"That's the way grandfather taught me how to fish," continued the boy,
as he took the hook from the captive's mouth, "I say, what's your name!"
"Dexter Grayson," was the answer, for the boy felt keenly already that
the names Obed Coleby were ones of which he could not be proud.
"Ever been in the workus!"
"Yes."
"Ever see grandfather there!"
"Yes, I've seen him," said Dexter, who felt no inclination to enlighten
the boy further.
"Ah, he could fish," said the boy, baiting and throwing in again. "My
name's Dimsted--Bob Dimsted. So's father's. He can fish as well as
grandfather. So can I," he added modestly; "there ain't a good place
nowheres in the river as we don't know. I could take you where you
could ketch fish every swim."
"Could you?" said Dexter, who seemed awed in the presence of so much
knowledge.
"Course I could, any day."
"And will you?" said Dexter eagerly.
"Ah dunno," said the boy, striking and missing another fish. "You
wouldn't care to go along o' me?"
"Yes, I should--fishing," cried Dexter. "But my line's fast."
"Why don't you climb up and get it then? Ain't afraid, are you!"
"What, to climb that tree?" cried Dexter. "Not I;" and laying the rod
down with the butt resting on the bank, he began to climb at once.
"Mind yer don't tumble in," cried Bob Dimsted; "some o' them boughs gets
very rotten--like touchwood."
"All right," said Dexter; and he climbed steadily on in happy ignorance
of the fact that the greeny lichen and growth was not good for dark
cloth trousers and vests. But the bole of the tree was short, for it
had been pollarded, and in a minute or two he was in a nest of branches,
several of which protruded over the water, the one in particular which
had entangled the fishing-line being not even horizontal, but dipping
toward the surface.
"That's the way," shouted Bob Dimsted. "Look sharp, they're biting like
fun."
"Think it'll bear?" said Dexter.
"Bear? Yes; half a dozen on yer. Sit on it striddling, and work
yourself along till you can reach the line. Got a knife?"
"Yes."
"Then go right out, and when you git far enough cut off the little
bough, and let it all drop into the water."
"Why, then, I should lose the fish."
"Not you. Ain't he hooked? You do as I say, and then git back, and you
can pull all out together."
Dexter bestrode the branch, and worked himself along further and further
till an ominous crack made him pause.
"Go on," shouted the boy from the other side.
"He'll think I'm a coward if I don't," said Dexter to himself, and he
worked himself along for another three feet, with the silvery fish just
before him, seeming to tempt him on.
"There, you can reach him now, can't you?" cried the boy.
"Yes; I think I can reach him now," said Dexter. "Wait till I get out
my knife."
It was not so easy to get out that knife, and to open it, as it would
have been on land. The position was awkward; the branch dipped at a
great slope now toward the water, and Dexter's trousers were not only
drawn half-way up his legs, but drawn so tightly by his attitude that he
could hardly get his hand into his pocket.
It was done though at last, the thin bough in which the line was tangled
seized by the left hand, while the right cut vigorously with the knife.
It would have been far easier to have disentangled the line, but Bob
Dimsted was a learned fisher, and he had laid down the law. So Dexter
cut and cut into the soft green wood till he got through the little
bough all but one thin piece of succulent bark, dancing up and down the
while over the deep water some fifteen feet from the bank.
_Soss_!
That last vigorous cut did it, and the bough, with its summer burden of
leaves, dropped with a splash into the water.
"There! What did I tell you!" cried Dexter's mentor. "Now you can get
back and pull all out together. Fish won't bite for a bit after this,
but they'll be all right soon."
Dexter shut up his knife, thrust it as well as he could into his pocket,
and prepared to return.
This was not so easy, for he had to go backwards. What was more, he had
to progress up hill. But, nothing daunted, he took tight hold with his
hands, bore down upon them, and was in the act of thrusting himself
along a few inches, when--_Crack_!
One loud, sharp, splintering crack, and the branch, which was rotten
three parts through, broke short off close to the trunk, and like an
echo to the crack came a tremendous--_Plash_!
That water, as already intimated, was deep, and, as a consequence, there
was a tremendous splash, and branch and its rider went down right out of
sight, twig after twig disappearing leisurely in the eddying swirl.