'It is my business, sir, and I am paid for it, and I must do it thoroughly;--and abide in the calling wherein I am called,' he added, in a sadder tone.

'You seem to be fond enough of it, and to know enough about it, at all events,' said the colonel, 'tying flies here on a sick-bed.'

'As for being fond of it, sir--those creatures of the water teach a man many lessons; and when I tie flies, I earn books.'

'How then?'

'I send my flies all over the country, sir, to Salisbury and Hungerford, and up to Winchester, even; and the money buys me many a wise book--all my delight is in reading; perhaps so much the worse for me.'

'So much the better, say,' answered Lancelot warmly. 'I'll give you an order for a couple of pounds' worth of flies at once.'

'The Lord reward you, sir,' answered the giant.

'And you shall make me the same quant.i.ty,' said the colonel. 'You can make salmon-flies?'

'I made a lot by pattern for an Irish gent, sir.'

'Well, then, we'll send you some Norway patterns, and some golden pheasant and parrot feathers. We're going to Norway this summer, you know, Lancelot--'

Tregarva looked up with a quaint, solemn hesitation.

'If you please, gentlemen, you'll forgive a man's conscience.'

'Well?'

'But I'd not like to be a party to the making of Norway flies.'

'Here's a Protectionist, with a vengeance!' laughed the colonel.

'Do you want to keep all us fishermen in England? eh? to fee English keepers?

'No, sir. There's pretty fishing in Norway, I hear, and poor folk that want money more than we keepers. G.o.d knows we get too much--we that hang about great houses and serve great folks' pleasure--you toss the money down our throats, without our deserving it; and we spend it as we get it--a deal too fast--while hard-working labourers are starving.'

'And yet you would keep us in England?'

'Would G.o.d I could!'

'Why then, my good fellow?' asked Lancelot, who was getting intensely interested with the calm, self-possessed earnestness of the man, and longed to draw him out.

The colonel yawned.

'Well, I'll go and get myself a couple of bait. Don't you stir, my good parson-keeper. Down charge, I say! Odd if I don't find a bait-net, and a rod for myself, under the verandah.'

'You will, colonel. I remember, now, I set it there last morning; but the water washed many things out of my brains, and some things into them--and I forgot it like a goose.'

'Well, good-bye, and lie still. I know what a drowning is, and more than one. A day and a night have I been in the deep, like the man in the good book; and bed is the best of medicine for a ducking;'

and the colonel shook him kindly by the hand and disappeared.

Lancelot sat down by the keeper's bed.

'You'll get those fish-hooks into your trousers, sir; and this is a poor place to sit down in.'

'I want you to say your say out, friend, fish-hooks or none.'

The keeper looked warily at the door, and when the colonel had pa.s.sed the window, balancing the trolling-rod on his chin, and whistling merrily, he began,--

'"A day and a night have I been in the deep!"--and brought back no more from it! And yet the Psalms say how they that go down to the sea in ships see the works of the Lord!--If the Lord has opened their eyes to see them, that must mean--'

Lancelot waited.

'What a gallant gentleman that is, and a valiant man of war, I'll warrant,--and to have seen all the wonders he has, and yet to be wasting his span of life like that!'

Lancelot's heart smote him.

'One would think, sir,--You'll pardon me for speaking out.' And the n.o.ble face worked, as he murmured to himself, 'When ye are brought before kings and princes for my name's sake.--I dare not hold my tongue, sir. I am as one risen from the dead,'--and his face flashed up into sudden enthusiasm--'and woe to me if I speak not.

Oh, why, why are you gentlemen running off to Norway, and foreign parts, whither G.o.d has not called you! Are there no graves in Egypt, that you must go out to die in the wilderness!'

Lancelot, quite unaccustomed to the language of the Dissenting poor, felt keenly the bad taste of the allusion.

'What can you mean?' he asked.

'Pardon me, sir, if I cannot speak plainly; but are there not temptations enough here in England that you must go to waste all your gifts, your scholarship, and your rank, far away there out of the sound of a church-going bell? I don't deny it's a great temptation. I have read of Norway wonders in a book of one Miss Martineau, with a strange name.'

'Feats on the Fiord?'

'That's it, sir. Her books are grand books to set one a-thinking; but she don't seem to see the Lord in all things, does she, sir?'

Lancelot parried the question.

'You are wandering a little from the point.'

'So I am, and thank you for the rebuke. There's where I find you scholars have the advantage of us poor fellows, who pick up knowledge as we can. Your book-learning makes you stick to the point so much better. You are taught how to think. After all--G.o.d forgive me if I'm wrong! but I sometimes think that there must be more good in that human wisdom, and philosophy falsely so called, than we Wesleyans hold. Oh, sir, what a blessing is a good education! What you gentlemen might do with it, if you did but see your own power! Are there no fish in England, sir, to be caught?

precious fish, with immortal souls? And is there not One who has said, "Come with me, and I will make you fishers of men?"'

'Would you have us all turn parsons?'

'Is no one to do G.o.d's work except the parson, sir? Oh, the game that you rich folks have in your hands, if you would but play it!

Such a man as Colonel Bracebridge now, with the tongue of the serpent, who can charm any living soul he likes to his will, as a stoat charms a rabbit. Or you, sir, with your tongue:--you have charmed one precious creature already. I can see it: though neither of you know it, yet I know it.'

Lancelot started, and blushed crimson.

'Oh, that I had your tongue, sir!' And the keeper blushed crimson, too, and went on hastily,--

'But why could you not charm all alike! Do not the poor want you as well as the rich?'

'What can I do for the poor, my good fellow? And what do they want?

Have they not houses, work, a church, and schools,--and poor-rates to fall back on?'

The keeper smiled sadly.