serious. "Why, you'll be cutting some fellow's hand or foot half off one of these days. Suppose I'd waded up the bank to see what had become of my cast?"

"Lor, sir, I never thought o' that," said the keeper, looking sheepish, and lifting the back of his short hat off his head to make room for a scratch; “but," added he, turning the subject, "if you wants to keep thay artful wosbirds off the water, you must frighten 'em wi' summat out o' the way. Drattle 'em, I knows they puts me to my wits'end; but you'd never 'a' had five such fish as them afore breakfast, sir, if we didn't stake the waters unmussiful."

"Well, and I don't want 'em, if I can't get 'em without. I'll tell you what it is, keeper, this razor business is going a bit too far; men ain't to be maimed for liking a bit of sport. You set spring-guns in the woods, and you know what that came to. Why don't you, or one of your watchers, stop out here at night, and catch the fellows, like men ?"

"Why, you see, sir, master don't allow me but one watcher, and he's mortal feared o' the water he be, specially o' nights. He'd sooner by half stop up in the woods. Daddy Collins (that's an old woman as lives on the heath, sir, and a bad sort she be, too), well, she told he once, when he wouldn't gee her some bacchy as he'd got, and she'd a mind to, as he'd fall twice into the water for once as he'd get out; and th' poor chap ever since can't think but what he'll be drownded. And there's queer sights and sounds by the river o' nights, too, I ool say, sir, let alone the white mist, as makes everything look unket, and gives a chap the rheumatics.'

66

Well, but you ain't afraid of ghosts and rheumatism?"

"No, I don't know as I be, sir. But then, there's the pheasants a-breedin', and there's four brood of flappers in the withey bed, and a sight o' young hares in the spinneys. 1 be hard put to to mind it all."

"I daresay you are," said Tom, putting on his coat, and shouldering his

at it myself, to help you, if you'll only drop those razors."

"I wishes you would, sir," said the keeper, from behind; "if genl'men 'd sometimes take a watch at nights, they'd find out as keepers hadn't all fair-weather work, I'll warrant, if they're to keep a good head o' game about a place; 'taint all popping off guns, and lunching under hayricks, I can tell 'emno, nor half on it."

"Where do you think, now, this fellow we were talking of sells his fish?" said Tom, after a minute's thought.

"Mostly at Reading Market, I hears tell, sir. There's the guard of the mail, as goes by the cross-roads three days a week, he wur a rare poaching chap hisself down in the west afore he got his place along of his bugle-playing. They

do say as he's open to any game, he is, from a buck to a snipe, and drives a trade all down the road with the country chaps."

"What day is Reading Market?" "Tuesdays and Saturdays, sir." "And what time does the mail go by?"

"Six o'clock in the morning, sir, at the cross-roads."

"And they're three miles off, across the fields?"

No, but I say, do come along; that's a good fellow."

out. Didn't hear? Wurley dared

you

me to do a night's watching, and I said I meant to do it."

"Yes; so did I. But we can change our minds. What's the good of having a mind if you can't change it! ai δευτεραι πως φροντίδες σοφωτέραι; isn't that good Greek and good sense?"

"I don't see it. They'll only laugh and sneer if we go back now."

"They'll laugh at us twice as much if we don't. Fancy! they're just beginning pool now on that stunning table. Come along, Brown; don't miss your chance. We shall be sure to divide the pools, as we've missed the claret. Cool hands and cool heads, you know! Green on brown, pink your player in hand! That's a good deal pleasanter than squatting here all night on the damp grass."

"Very likely."

or

Tom's interlocutor put his hands in the pockets of his heather mixture shooting-coat, and took a turn two of some dozen yards, backwards and forwards above the place where our hero was sitting. He didn't like going in and facing the pod-players by himself; so he stopped once more and re-opened the conversation.

"What do you want to do by watching all night, Brown?"

"To show the keeper and those fellows in doors that I mean what I say. I said I'd do it, and I will."

"I don't much care: I'll catch one if he comes in my way-or try it on, at any rate."

I say, Brown, I like that; as if you don't poach yourself. Why, I remember when the Whiteham keeper spent the best part of a week outside the college gates, on the look-out for you and Drysdale and some other fellows.".

"What has that to do with it?"

'Why, you ought to have more fellow-feeling. I suppose you go on the principle of set a thief to catch a thief." Tom made no answer, and his companion went on

"Come along now, like a good fellow. If you'll come in now, we can come out again all fresh, when the rest go to bed."

"Not we. I sha'n't go in. But you can come out again, if you like; you'll find me hereabouts."

The man in the heather mixture had now shot his last bolt, and took himself off to the house, leaving Tom by the river side. How they got there may be told in a few words. After his morning's fishing, and conversation with the keeper, he had gone in full of his subject, and propounded it at the breakfast table. His strictures on the knife and razor business produced a rather warm discussion, which merged in the question whether a keeper's life was a hard one, till something was said implying that Wurley's men were over-worked. The master took this in high dudgeon, and words ran high. In the discussion, Tom remarked (apropos of night-work) that he would never ask another man to do what he would not do himself; which sentiment was endorsed by, amongst others, the man in the heather mixture. 'The host had retorted, that they had better in that case try it themselves; which remark had the effect of making Tom resolve to cut short his visit, and in the meantime had brought him and his ally to the river side on the night in question.

The first hour, as we have seen, had been enough for the ally; and so Tom was

serious. "Why, you'll be cutting some fellow's hand or foot half off one of these days. Suppose I'd waded up the bank to see what had become of my cast?"

"Lor, sir, I never thought o' that," said the keeper, looking sheepish, and lifting the back of his short hat off his head to make room for a scratch; "but," added he, turning the subject, "if you wants to keep thay artful wosbirds off the water, you must frighten 'em wi' summat out o' the way. Drattle 'em, I knows they puts me to my wits'end; but you'd never 'a' had five such fish as them afore breakfast, sir, if we didn't stake the waters unmussiful."

"Well, and I don't want 'em, if I can't get 'em without. I'll tell you what it is, keeper, this razor business is going a bit too far; men ain't to be maimed for liking a bit of sport. You set spring-guns in the woods, and you know what that came to. Why don't you, or one of your watchers, stop out here at night, and catch the fellows, like men?"

"Why, you see, sir, master don't allow me but one watcher, and he's mortal feared o' the water he be, specially o' nights. He'd sooner by half stop up in the woods. Daddy Collins (that's an old woman as lives on the heath, sir, and a bad sort she be, too), well, she told he once, when he wouldn't gee her some bacchy as he'd got, and she'd a mind to, as he'd fall twice into the water for once as he'd get out; and th' poor chap ever since can't think but what he'll be drownded. And there's queer sights and sounds by the river o' nights, too, I ool say, sir, let alone the white mist, as makes everything look unket, and gives a chap the rheumatics."

"Well, but you ain't afraid of ghosts and rheumatism? ?"

"No, I don't know as I be, sir. But then, there's the pheasants a-breedin', and there's four brood of flappers in the withey bed, and a sight o' young hares in the spinneys. I be hard put to to mind it all.”

"I daresay you are," said Tom, putting on his coat, and shouldering his

at it myself, to help you, if you'll only drop those razors."

"I wishes you would, sir," said the keeper, from behind; "if genl'men 'd sometimes take a watch at nights, they'd find out as keepers hadn't all fair-weather work, I'll warrant, if they're to keep a good head o' game about a place; 'taint all popping off guns, and lunching under hayricks, I can tell 'emno, nor half on it."

"Where do you think, now, this fellow we were talking of sells his fish?" said Tom, after a minute's thought.

"Mostly at Reading Market, I hears tell, sir. There's the guard of the mail, as goes by the cross-roads three days a week, he wur a rare poaching chap hisself down in the west afore he got his place along of his bugle-playing. They do say as he's open to any game, he is, from a buck to a snipe, and drives a trade all down the road with the country chaps."

"What day is Reading Market?" "Tuesdays and Saturdays, sir." "And what time does the mail go by?"

"Six o'clock in the morning, sir, at the cross-roads."

"And they're three miles off, across the fields?"

"You may do as you please, but I'm going to see it out."

"No, but I say, do come along; that's a good fellow."

out. Didn't you hear? Wurley dared me to do a night's watching, and I said I meant to do it."

"Yes; so did I. But we can change our minds. What's the good of having a mind if you can't change it! ai δευτεραι πως φροντίδες σοφωτέραι; isn't that good Greek and good sense?"

"I don't see it. They'll only laugh and sneer if we go back now."

"They'll laugh at us twice as much if we don't. Fancy! they're just beginning pool now on that stunning table. Come along, Brown; don't miss your chance. We shall be sure to divide the pools, as we've missed the claret. Cool hands and cool heads, you know! Green on brown, pink your player in hand! That's a good deal pleasanter than squatting here all night on the damp grass."

"Very likely.'

66

Well, then, they may chaff and be hanged, for I sha'n't go in now."

Tom's interlocutor put his hands in the pockets of his heather mixture shooting-coat, and took a turn or two of some dozen yards, backwards and forwards above the place where our hero was sitting. He didn't like going in and facing the pod-players by himself; so he stopped once more and re-opened the conversation.

"What do you want to do by watching all night, Brown?"

I

"To show the keeper and those fellows in doors that I mean what I say. said I'd do it, and I will."

"You don't want to catch a poacher,

"I don't much care: I'll catch one if he comes in my way-or try it on, at any rate."

"I say, Brown, I like that; as if you don't poach yourself. Why, I remember when the Whiteham keeper spent the best part of a week outside the college gates, on the look-out for you and Drysdale and some other fellows." "What has that to do with it?"

Why, you ought to have more fellow-feeling. I suppose you go on the principle of set a thief to catch a thief.” Tom made no answer, and his companion went on

"Come along now, like a good fellow. If you'll come in now, we can come out again all fresh, when the rest go to bed." "Not we. I sha'n't go in. But you can come out again, if you like; you'll find me hereabouts."

The man in the heather mixture had now shot his last bolt, and took himself off to the house, leaving Tom by the river side. How they got there may be told in a few words. After his morning's fishing, and conversation with the keeper, he had gone in full of his subject, and propounded it at the breakfast table. His strictures on the knife and razor business produced a rather warm discussion, which merged in the question whether a keeper's life was a hard one, till something was said implying that Wurley's men were over-worked. The master took this in high dudgeon, and words ran high. In the discussion, Tom remarked (apropos of night-work) that he would never ask another man to do what he would not do himself; which sentiment was endorsed by, amongst others, the man in the heather mixture. The host had retorted, that they had better in that case try it themselves; which remark had the effect of making Tom resolve to cut short his visit, and in the meantime had brought him and his ally to the river side on the night in question.

The first hour, as we have seen, had been enough for the ally; and so Tom was left in company with a plaid, a stick, and

It was by no means the first night he had spent in the open air, and promised to be a pleasant one for camping out. It was almost the longest day in the year, and the weather was magnificent. There was yet an hour of daylight, and the place he had chosen was just the right one for enjoying the evening.

He was sitting under one of a clump of huge old alders, growing on the thin strip of land already noticed, which divided the main stream from the deep artificial ditch which fed the watermeadows. On his left the emeraldgreen meadows stretched away till they met the inclosed corn land. On his right ran the main stream, some fifty feet in breadth at this point; on the opposite side of which was a rough piece of ground, half withey bed, half copse, with a rank growth of rushes at the water's edge. These were the chosen haunts of moor-hen and water-rat, whose tracks could be seen by dozens, like small open doorways, looking out on to the river, through which ran mysterious little paths into the rush-wilderness beyond.

The sun was now going down behind the copse, through which his beams came aslant, chequered and mellow. The stream ran dimpling down by him, sleepily swaying the masses of weed, under the surface and on the surface; and the trout rose under the banks, as some moth or gnat or gleaming beetle fell into the stream; here and there one more frolicsome than his brethren would throw himself joyously into the air. The swifts rushed close by him, in companies of five or six, and wheeled, and screamed, and dashed away again, skimming along the water, baffling his eye as he tried to follow their flight." Two kingfishers shot suddenly up on to their supper station, on a stunted willow stump, some twenty yards below him, and sat there in the glory of their blue backs and cloudy red waistcoats, watching with long sagacious beaks pointed to the water beneath, and every now and then dropping like flashes of light into the stream, and rising again with what

He

heron or two were fishing about the meadows; and he watched them stalking about in their sober quaker coats, or rising on slow heavy wing, and lumbering away home with a weird cry. heard the strong pinions of the wood pigeon in the air, and then from the trees above his head came the soft call, "Take-two-cow-Taffy, take-two-cowTaffy," with which that fair and false bird is said to have beguiled the hapless Welchman to the gallows. Presently, as he lay motionless, the timid and graceful little water-hens peered out from their doors in the rushes opposite, and, seeing no cause for fear, stepped daintily into the water, and were suddenly surrounded by little bundles of black soft down, which went paddling about in and out of the weeds, encouraged by the occasional sharp, clear, parental "keck-keck," and merry little dabchicks popped up in mid-stream, and looked round, and nodded at him, pert and voiceless, and dived again; even old cunning water-rats sat up on the bank with round black noses and gleaming eyes, or took solemn swims out, and turned up their tails and disappeared for his amusement. A comfortable low came at intervals from the cattle, revelling in the abundant herbage. living things seemed to be disporting themselves, and enjoying, after their kind, the last gleams of the sunset, which were making the whole vault of heaven glow and shimmer; and, as he watched them, Tom blessed his stars as he contrasted the river-side with the glare of lamps and the click of balls in the noisy pool-room.

All

Before it got dark he bethought him of making sure of his position once more; matters might have changed since he chose it before dinner. With all that he could extract from the keeper, and his own experience in such matters, it had taken him several hours hunting up and down the river that afternoon before he had hit on a night-line. But he had persevered, knowing that this was the only safe evidence to start from, and at last had found several, so cunningly set that it