A fortnight had glided by. The dam was kept more than full by hours of
stormy weather high up in the hills many miles away; but the stream had
resumed its gentle course, the trout were back in their old haunts,
Manners had finished one of his landscapes and begun another, and one
soft, sweet, very early autumn evening three busy pairs of hands where
at work at the round table plainly visible in the light cast by Mrs
Drinkwater's shaded lamp.
"No," said Will, who was holding something in a pair of pliers in his
left hand, and winding a thread of silk brought up from the mill round
it with his right, "he hasn't been near us yet. Josh and I keep running
against him in the woods, or up one of the river paths; but, as soon as
he sees us, he turns his back and goes in among the trees."
"Shies at us," interpolated Josh.
"Yes," said Will, softly, as he wound away, his face screwed up and
looking intent to a degree. "Shies! I say, Mr Manners, you, living
here, see him every day, of course?"
"No, I don't," said the artist. "He has his breakfast before I'm down,
and goes off and doesn't come back till after dark. The missus, poor
soul, told me yesterday--crying away like your old mill-wheel--that he
takes a bit of bread and cheese with him and goes off to sit and mope
somewhere in the woods. He never hardly speaks to her. She said, poor
thing, that she'd give anything to see him back at his regular work."
"Ha!" cried Will, holding up the something proudly upon which he had
been at work. "Now, I call that something like a coachman."
"Not a bit," said Josh. "How can a little hook, a thread of gut, a few
small feathers, and some dubbing, be like a coachman?"
"Get out, Clevershakes! What an old chop-logic you are! I didn't
christen that kind of artificial fly a coachman; but it's a well-made
one, isn't it, Mr Manners?"
"Well, yes, very nicely made; but it's not a London maker's idea of a
jarvey."
"No," said Will, "but it's the sort that will catch the fish. You'd
never guess whose make that is."
"Why, it's yours, my lad."
"Yes; but you don't know who taught me."
"Not I; but I should like you to make me half a dozen more."
"All right; I will; a dozen, if you like. They suit our waters fine.
That's old Boil O's pattern. He taught me; he used to say that the
proper way to make a fly was to watch the real one first, and make it as
near as you could like that--not take a copy from somebody's book."
"Quite right," said the artist; "old Boil O's a philosopher."
"I wish he was a sensible man instead," said Will. "I've been thinking,
Mr Manners, that as you live here and know him so well--"
"That I don't," cried the artist. "I never knew less of any man in my
life."
"Well, never mind that; you live here, and I think it would be very nice
if you'd get hold of him and talk sensibly, like you can."
"Thank you for the compliment, my young judge."
"I say, don't poke fun, Mr Manners; I want to talk seriously."
"That's right; I like to hear you sometimes, my young joker. I wouldn't
give a sou for a fellow who was all fun."
"Well, look here, Mr Manners; I want you to let him see what a jolly
old stupid he is making of himself. Of course father can't come and ask
him to return to work, but I know that dad would shake hands with him at
once, and be as pleased as Punch."
"Well," said the artist, dryly, "I can't quite see in my own mind your
grave and reverend parent looking as pleased as Punch; it doesn't seem
quite in his way."
"Of course not; but you know what I mean."
"Well, I guess at it, boy; and you mean what is quite right. I should
be very glad to do anything for either of you, and to put an end to a
melancholy state of affairs; but look here, my dear boy, I don't think
that I should be doing right as an outsider, such a bird of passage as I
am, to say more to Drinkwater than I have already done. He knows what I
think; but I want to be friends with everybody here, and I feel sure
that by interfering further I should be turning ray landlord into an
enemy. I am obliged to say `no.' And now, if you please, we'll go on
with our fly-making, and get our tackle ready for another turn at the
trout."
"Well, I am very sorry," said Will, sadly, "and--"
"Whatever's that?" cried Josh, springing to his feet and staring wildly
through the open window.
"Eh? Whatever's what?" said the artist, slowly, looking in the same
direction. "Why, as Pat would say, it isn't to-morrow morning, and the
sun never rises in the west, or he'd be getting up now. Why, by all
that's wonderful, it's--"
"Fire! Fire!" shouted Will, wildly.
"Yes," cried Josh, in a husky voice, "and it's at the mill."