“Be back in good time,” she whispered. “George Day, you said?”
“Yes; his father is something in London, and he goes to the grammar-school.”
“Be back in good time,” she whispered again; and getting my cap, I just caught sight of Shock at the top of the wall as I ran by the window.
“Poor fellow!” I thought, “how he, too, would like a holiday!”
“Here I am,” I cried; and feeling as if I had been just released from some long confinement, I set off with my companion at a sharp run.
We had to call at his house, a large red brick place just at the end of the village, close to Isleworth church, where the rod was obtained, with a basket to hold bait, lines, and the fish that we were going to catch; and soon after we were down where the sleek cows were contentedly lying about munching, and giving their heads an angry toss now and then to keep off the flies.
Rich grass, golden butter-cups, bushes and trees whose boughs swept down towards the ground, swallows and swifts darting here and there, and beneath the vividly blue sky there was the river like so much damascened silver, for in those days one never thought about the mud.
I cannot describe the joy I felt in running here and there with my companion, and a couple of his school-fellows who had preceded us, and who saluted us as we approached with a shout.
We ran about till we were tired, and then the fishing commenced from the bank, for the tide was well up, and according to my companion’s account the fish were in plenty.
Perhaps they were, but though bait after bait was placed upon the hook, and the line thrown out to float along with the current, not a fish was caught, no vestige of that nerve-titillating tremble of the float—a bite—was seen.