What I caught and heard.
“I should say you will very likely have some sport,” said Uncle Dick. “Try by all means.”
“I hardly like to, uncle,” I said.
“Nonsense, my lad! All work and no play makes Jack—I mean Jacob—a dull boy.”
“But it will seem as if I am neglecting my work.”
“By no means. Besides, we shall not be busy for a day or two. Have a few hours’ fishing, and I daresay one of us will come and see how you are getting on.”
The opportunity was too tempting to be lost, so I got a cheap rod and a dear line—a thoroughly good one, asked a gardener just outside to dig up some small red worms for me, and, furnishing myself with some paste and boiled rice, I one morning took my place up at the head of the dam where the stream came in, chose a place where the current whirled round in a deep hole and began fitting my tackle together prior to throwing in.
I had been longing for this trial, for I felt sure that there must be some big fish in the dam. It was quite amongst the houses and factories, but all the same it was deep, there was a constant run of fresh water through it, and I had more than once seen pieces of bread sucked down in a curiously quiet way, as if taken by a great slow moving fish, a carp or tench, an old inhabitant of the place.
Certainly it was not the sort of spot I should have selected for a day’s fishing had I been offered my choice, but it was the best I could obtain then, and I was going to make the most of it.
I laughed to myself as I thought of the eels, and the great haul I had made down in the wheel-pit, and then I shuddered as I thought of the horrors I had suffered down there, and wondered whether our troubles with the men were pretty well over.