Part 2

In this way Caleb became a prospective pupil of the gardener, and after this he walked home with the father and daughter every Sunday. And Pansy became more and more shy in his presence, and blushed more deeply at his coming; whilst his heart swelled and throbbed, and the words he wanted to speak played tantalisingly about his tongue, but found no voice. By-and-by there was a curious change in Pansy. Her shyness and her blushes disappeared: she spoke to him in much the same manner as she did to Jacob Cone or Jerry Mogridge or any of the other men about the place. At first he was disposed to be pleased with the change, for it seemed to make him more at home when he visited the cottage. Presently he began to fancy that she tried to keep out of his way, and he did not understand it. Then one day she had a basket of flowers to take up to the house for the young ladies, and Caleb accompanied her. As they neared the house, he surrendered the basket to her, and he had only done so when they met Coutts.

‘Ah, early birds!’ he said, with his cynical smile; ‘good-morning.—Will you give me a flower for my button-hole, Pansy?—Thank you. That is a very pretty one—it will make me think of you all day.’

He passed on, and Pansy was blushing as she used to do when Caleb spoke to her.

Caleb drew a long breath, and with it inhaled the poison which distorted all his thoughts. He spoke no word; but the gloom which fell upon him spoiled him for work, and checked his visits to the cottage until he heard that warning cry from Philip:

‘Trust her, man; trust her. That is the way to be worthy of a worthy woman.’

The words seemed to rouse him from a wretched nightmare and to clear his eyes and head. The words kept ringing in his ears, and when he peered through the black span which lay between this day and the one on which Pansy gave Coutts Hadleigh the flower, he felt that the darkness was due to films on his own eyes, not to change in the atmosphere.

He straightened his shoulders and raised his head: he was able to look his future in the face again.

‘I will trust her,’ he said to himself bravely. When he went to Gray’s Inn in obedience to his master’s instructions, he had only to say: ‘Thank you, sir; you have done me a deal of good, and I’ll do what you tell me.’

‘Spoken like the sensible fellow I always believed you to be,’ rejoined Philip, much relieved. He would have rejoiced, but he was at the time too much distracted by his own affairs to be able to feel elated by anything. ‘There will be no more sulks, then, no more losing heart and seeing mountains in molehills?’

‘I hope not.’

‘That’s right; and ... look here, Caleb. I have a notion, from something you said, that I know the man you have been worrying yourself about. Take my word for it, if my guess is right, he is much too cautious a fellow—to put it on no higher ground—and too careful of himself, to be a poacher. He likes a joke, though; and if I were you, I would not let him see that he was making me uneasy. You understand—he might for the fun of the thing get up some hoax.’

Caleb thought he understood, and at anyrate the main point was quite clear to him—he was to trust her. And he kept faith with himself in that respect. Whenever she seemed cold to him, he blamed himself for bothering her at the wrong time. She had other things to take up her attention—all the work of the cottage, many odd jobs to do for her father, besides the hens to look after and their eggs to gather for the breakfast-table of the Manor. When she seemed to be trying to keep out of his way, he set it down to the fact that she had something particular to do. He found excuses for every change, real or imaginary, that had come over her manner of treating him. Come what might of it, he would trust her.

Then there was a bright forenoon on which Philip sent him out to Ringsford to fetch a small box, and he had an hour to spare before he had to start for his return train. So he went over to the cottage. The sun was gleaming whitely on the little green in front, and the grass was sparkling with frozen dewdrops. There was Pansy—eyes in their brightness rivalling the flashing dewdrops, cheeks aglow with healthful exercise, and sleeves tucked up above the elbows—hanging out the clothes she had just taken from the tub.

Caleb halted at the corner of the green. He had never in this world seen anything so graceful as that lithe figure moving actively about in the clear sunlight casting the clothes over the lines, now reaching up on tiptoe to place a peg in some high place, and again whipping up her basket and marching farther along with it.

She had covered one long line and taken a clothes-pole to raise it. That was a feat of strength, and Caleb sprang to her side.

‘Let me do that for you, Pansy.’

‘Gracious!’ was the startled exclamation; and at the same moment he planted the pole upright, the clothes thus forming a screen between them and the vine-house where Sam Culver was at work.

‘You didn’t expect to see me here at this time of day,’ he said, laughing, but already beginning to feel awkward, and looking everywhere except where he most desired to look—in her face. ‘I had to come down for this box; and as there was time enough, I thought I’d come round this way.’

She laughed a little, too, at her scare, and then began to hang out more clothes on another line as hastily as if she had not a minute to spare. He looked on, his eyes glancing away whenever she turned towards him. She also began to feel a little awkward, and somehow she did not fasten the pegs on the line with such deft firmness as she had done before he made his presence known.

‘Father is in the vine-house,’ she said by-and-by, compelled to seek relief by saying something.

‘I wish you would let me do something for you,’ was his inconsequent reply.

‘Something for me!’

‘Yes, carry the basket—anything.’

‘The basket is empty, and I have to go back to the washhouse.’

‘I will go with you.’

‘But there is nothing to do except wring out the clothes.’

‘Let me help you with that.’

‘Pretty work it would be for you!’ This with a nervous little laugh, which she evidently intended to convey an impression of good-natured ridicule.

‘It doesn’t matter what it is, so being it is for you.’

She stooped quickly, seizing one handle of the basket; he took the other, and they lifted it between them. He looked straight in her face now, and he fancied that the colour faded from her cheeks.

‘Father is in the vine-house,’ she repeated, looking in another direction.

‘I want to tell you something, Pansy.’ He was a little husky, and unconsciously moved the basket to and fro.

She knew what he wanted to tell her, and she did not want to hear—at least not then.

‘I can’t stay—I must run in now.’ She tried to take the basket from him.

‘Don’t go yet. I made up my mind to tell you when I was standing over there looking at you. I was meaning to do it many a time afore, but just when I was ready, you always got out of my way, and I couldn’t say it when you came back.’

‘I wish you’d let me go. I don’t want to hear anything—I’m in a hurry. Won’t father do?’

She was nervous; there were signs even of distress in her manner, and she could not look at him.

‘Ay, your father will do,’ he answered earnestly, ‘if you say that I may tell him we have agreed about it.’

‘About what?—No, no, no; you must not tell him that. We are not agreed. We never will agree about _that_.’

She was frightened, dropped the basket, and would have run away, but he had caught her hand. He was pale, and although his heart was hammering at his chest, he was outwardly calm.

‘Don’t say never, Pansy,’ he pleaded in a low voice; and she was touched by the gentleness of it, which contrasted so strangely with the manner of the loud-voiced orator when speaking to a crowd on the village green. ‘I’ve scared you by coming too sudden upon you. But you’ll think about it, and you’ll give me the right word some other time.’

‘There is no need to think about it—I cannot think about it,’ she answered with tears of mingled vexation and regret in her eyes.

‘But you’ll come to think about it after a bit, and I’ll wait—I’ll wait until you come to it.’

‘I never will—I never can.’

‘You’re vexed with me for being so rough in my way of asking you. I couldn’t help that, Pansy: but I’ll be patient, and I’ll wait till you come round to it or ... until you say that you can’t do it because your head is too full of somebody else.’

Pale and earnest, his lips trembled as these last words passed them. She uttered a half-stifled ‘Oh!’ and ran into the cottage. He stood in the bright sunlight looking after her, and the gloom fell upon his face again. There was something in that cry which seemed to tell him that her head was already too full of somebody else for him to find the place he yearned to hold in her thoughts. He knew the somebody.

(_To be continued._)

THE CHARR OF WINDERMERE.

The confined localisation of this delicate fish renders its natural history somewhat difficult to ascertain. As little, or even less, is known of its proceedings during a great portion of the year as of the salmon itself during its sojourn in the sea. There are several varieties of the charr in the Lake district of Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lancashire; but undoubtedly they are merely the same fish changed by circumstances and general surroundings; just as the common trout varies in appearance, size, and condition according to the nature of the water in which it is found and the food obtained there. Charr are found in many of the Scotch and Irish lochs; whilst in the English Lake district they are more or less plentiful in Windermere, Coniston, Buttermere, Hawes-water, Ennerdale, Crummock-water, Goats-water, and one or two other tarns or meres. In the first-named lake it is by far the most numerous; and Coniston holds a good supply, though Sir Humphry Davy, writing thirty years ago, says: ‘The charr is now scarce in Coniston, and quite extinct in Ullswater.’ Now it is occasionally found in the latter; whilst in the former it is plentiful, and, with a comparative discontinuance of the working of the lead mines, the wash from which polluted the water, is increasing. Large quantities of very fine fish were taken during last year. It is similar pollution which has destroyed the fish in Ullswater. For this beautiful lake, let us hope for a return of the olden times, when charr and trout and skellies ‘peopled’ its waters, over which the kite and golden eagle often flew, and down whose slopes the red-deer from Martindale fells may even now find its way to quaff a morning’s draught. As regards edible qualities, the Windermere and Coniston charr are the best; those of Hawes-water and Goats-water being smaller and of inferior quality.

Local history tells us that the love of a dainty dish induced the monks of Furness to stock Windermere with charr, which were obtained from some lake in the neighbourhood of the Alps; hence the fish is still known as _Salmo alpinus_; but the correct nomenclature is _Salmo umbla_. The same history or tradition tells us that this fish was placed there only about two centuries ago. Against this, a manuscript has recently been discovered, bearing date 1535, to the effect that a certain Jacques Tallour was permitted ‘to catch and tol the fayre fish charr in Wynandermer, and also his son Gerald.’ There is no reason to doubt that the charr is as likely to be indigenous to some of our lakes as our ordinary trout. During a considerable portion of the year, the charr frequent the deepest parts of the lake, feeding upon and finding nourishment in the minute crustaceans and larvæ found in such places. In this respect the nature of this fish is actually the reverse of that of the trout, which delights in the shallows, and feeds on the flies and moths hatched on the gravel-beds and elsewhere. Nature would doubtless ‘people’ Windermere, Coniston, and other lakes with that fish which could best live in its deepest parts, and this fish is the charr. Probably, specimens were removed from here to smaller sheets of water, in some of which, however, it fails to thrive, though breeding and increasing in numbers. There is a vast difference in appearance between the charr of Windermere and the charr of Hawes-water: the latter thin and flabby; the former elegantly shaped, and more graceful in outline than the trout, not so fat and podgy as many of our spotted beauties are; a general and a uniform shade of pinkness appears, as it were, to shine through the skin; in some specimens, as it approaches the belly, this hue becomes a deep red; hence the ‘red-bellied charr.’ It has, of course, other distinctive differences, as in the shape of gill covers, number of fin rays, &c., which have often been described.

Unfortunately, our charr is mostly a bottom or mid-water feeder, and cannot take high rank as a sporting fish; but on the table it excels. In size it varies from a pound in weight downwards, though larger specimens have often been caught. The usual size is about three fish to the pound of sixteen ounces; though in Hawes-water and Goats-water, about eight to the pound is considered the usual run. In both these tarns the charr rises pretty freely at the fly, indicating an insufficiency of food below the surface; and it is this bottom-food which gives to them the excellent condition and flavour they attain in the deeper and larger lakes. The same may be said of the gillaroos, found in some of the Irish lochs.

It is surprising that more attention has not been given to the artificial rearing of charr. Some years ago, the Windermere Angling Association hatched and turned into that lake some thousands of the young fish; but the earliest note we have of their artificial rearing was by Dr Davy, then living at Lesketh How, Ambleside. This took place about thirty years ago, and was done in the most rough-and-ready fashion. Still the infant fish were produced from the milt-impregnated ova; and a few days after hatching, and with the ‘sac’ still in attachment, the delicate ‘infants’ were transferred to Easedale tarn. Too young to defend themselves, the fry no doubt perished. Yarrell says that in the autumn of 1839, several charr, of some half-pound weight each, were placed in Lily Mere, not far from Sedbergh. Twelve months later, two of these fish, when retaken, were said to have been two pound-weight each! They were served at the Queen-dowager’s table at Kirkby-Lonsdale. These reputed large charr were no doubt trout, for which the mere in question was famous. A few years since, charr were placed in Potter Fell tarn, which is connected with the river Kent (Westmoreland) by a small runner. One of these charr was caught with fly in the river itself, some miles from the tarn. It had increased in size from about four to some seven ounces in the space of twelve months. It was kept alive, and in due course returned to the Potter Fell. This is evidence that charr may live in a stream, and in the absence of suitable bottom-food, adopt the habits of the trout, and rise to the fly. On this account, they are worth cultivation; and their delicacy and fine flavour make them more valuable than the best trout—a fact which should be an inducement to their propagation. Potted charr is considered amongst the greatest fish-dainties that can be set before the gourmet.

The charr is usually taken in nets, though often caught with artificial baits, trolled at varying depths, after the style of the paternoster used in perch-fishing. Commencing at the beginning of March, the fishermen know the water the charr frequent, and soon find at what depth they lie in shoals or schools. As the season becomes warmer, the charr approach nearer the surface; and in genial weather, towards the end of May or beginning of June, are at times seen basking near the surface of the lake; not feeding, but ‘bobbing’ their noses out of the water, causing rises or bubbles, which in calm weather are easily discerned by the fishermen. If possible, the shoal is surrounded by a net or nets, and a rare capture ensues. Upwards of one hundred and eighty pound-weight of charr has thus been taken at one haul; and when one considers they are worth wholesale from sixteen to eighteen pence per pound, the employment cannot fail to be a lucrative one. We cannot, however, commend the practice of netting, which is not sport, but wholesale destruction.

SILAS MONK.

A TALE OF LONDON OLD CITY.

IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CONCLUSION.

The streets in the old city are dark and deserted as the detective and Walter Tiltcroft hasten through them towards Crutched Friars. The street-lamps cast limited spaces of light upon the fronts of lofty warehouses and counting-houses, leaving limitless spaces of shadow about and above. The windows of these mansions have the blankness of blind eyes; the great, black, massive office-doors are firmly closed; and the greater doors of the warehouses are fastened with huge padlocks and chains, like prisons, or places with dead secrets made safe in the custody of night. Not a word is spoken. The two men, earnestly bent on their search, walk along with the echoes of their footsteps sounding loudly in their ears; while the tap on the pavement of Fenwick’s stick falls with a musical ring, as though it were gifted with the power, like a magic wand, of chasing the echoes away. When they presently stop at the entrance to the counting-house of Armytage and Company, the detective produces a latchkey, opens the door, and leads the way into the house. As soon as Walter has entered and the door is closed behind him, Fenwick draws forth a dark-lantern, which he flashes unceremoniously in the young clerk’s face. ‘I call this light,’ says Fenwick, ‘my eye.’

Walter stares at it, and blinks.

‘It has peered into and pierced through many a dark deed.—Catch hold!’

Walter, with trembling expectation, takes the lantern.

‘Throw the light upon the keyhole!’ cries Fenwick. ‘I will open the door.’ He rattles, as he speaks, a bunch of keys.

‘Which keyhole first?’ Walter asks.

‘The strong-room.’

Walter shows the way. They pass through the clerks’ office and reach the iron-bound door of the strong-room. The keyhole is rusty with age; and when Fenwick stoops and applies the key, there is a grating sound inside the lock like the grinding of teeth. As soon as the door is thrown open, Walter, with quick-beating heart, flings the light forward into the room; that strange fancy coming over him that his eyes will encounter the ghostly form of the old miser, as he had imagined him that afternoon, wrapped in the white shroud, dancing round his heap of gold. But finding nothing except dark walls, he boldly steps in. The high stool beside the old desk, where he has so often seen Silas Monk sitting and poring over large ledgers, is vacant, and the ledgers are lying about on the desk, closed.

‘Now,’ says Fenwick, ‘give me the lantern.’

Walter complies, and the detective flashes the light about from ceiling to floor. Suddenly the two men are startled by a stifled cry. Fenwick casts his lantern angrily upon Walter’s face, as though he suspects him of having uttered it. The clerk’s eyes are terror-stricken, and his face deadly pale.

‘What’s that?’ asks the detective.

Walter clutches at Fenwick’s wrist. ‘It is the cry which I heard this afternoon.’

‘What do you mean?’

The light of the lantern is still on Walter’s face as he answers: ‘I was seated at my desk. The cry came from this room; but I thought it was a fancy. At that moment Mr Armytage sent for me, and I was afraid, if I mentioned it, that the clerks would laugh at me.’

‘Why?’ asks Fenwick, with surprise. ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’

‘N—no,’ says Walter with some hesitation. ‘But that cry did seem rather ghostly too.’

‘Nonsense! It is Silas Monk.’

‘But it sounded,’ continued Walter, ‘as though it were in this room.’

‘That’s true.’

‘Then it must be his ghost; for there is no living being here except ourselves.’

Fenwick again flashes the light from ceiling to floor, as though to make sure of this. Then he says: ‘Kneel down, my lad. Place your ear to the ground, and listen.’

Walter quickly obeys; and for some minutes a dead silence reigns in the strong-room. The beating of his heart is all that Tiltcroft hears; and all that he is otherwise conscious of is that Fenwick’s ‘eye’ is watching the side of his face uppermost on the floor as he lies there listening. Their patience is presently rewarded. Their ears are filled with another cry, pitiable and more prolonged.

Walter springs to his feet. ‘It is there!’ he cries.

‘Below?’

‘Yes; directly beneath our feet.’

The detective begins to examine the flooring. Inch by inch the ‘eye’ wanders over the ground. An antique threadbare drugget is moved on one side; packets of papers, ledgers, and lumber are shifted from one corner to another. At last Fenwick lights upon a circular hole about the size of a crown-piece, scarcely an inch deep. ‘Ah!’ cries he, ‘now we are on the track.’ He takes from his pocket a penknife, scoops about, and turns up a ring attached to the floor. He puts his large muscular thumb into this ring, and gives a jerk. A patch three or four feet square in the boarding is detached. ‘A trap-door!’ cries Fenwick. ‘Stand clear.’

So it proves—a trap-door, which the detective quickly raises, revealing pitch-darkness in the opening.

‘Go below,’ says Fenwick; ‘I’ll follow.’

Walter looks down, hesitating. But when the light is thrown that way, and he observes that there are steps leading into the obscurity, he takes the lead. The descent seems endless; for he moves slowly, as Fenwick, coming after him, throws the light upon him. Walter hears the hard breathing of the detective, and it sounds so strange in the stillness that he holds his own breath to listen. Suddenly the light from the lantern falls upon something which glitters on the ground on all sides.

‘Gold!’ cries Walter. His feet touch the ground. He stoops and picks up a handful of sovereigns. ‘The place is a vault, and it is paved with gold.—What’s that?’ He points to something in one corner like a human form.

The detective steps forward and bends down, throwing the light upon a ghastly wrinkled face. The small eyes glitter like the gold, as though they had caught the reflection, and the long lean fingers are clutching sovereigns and raking them up. Fenwick touches the miser on the shoulder. ‘What is all this?’ asks he. ‘Have you lost your senses?’

The old man utters a cry of distress which has in it a ring of madness.

‘Speak to him, my lad,’ says Fenwick. ‘He will perhaps recognise your voice.’

Walter kneels and takes the old miser’s hand. ‘Mr Monk,’ says he, ‘do you know me? I am Walter Tiltcroft, your friend.’

Silas Monk looks up, bursts into a wild fit of laughter, and then falls back senseless.

The detective lifts the old man in his strong arms as though handling a child. ‘Ascend the ladder!’ cries he quickly to Walter, ‘and show a light; not a moment must be lost in getting the old man home.’

* * * * *