Ay, 'tis so, 'tis so!"
Sherebiah sighed, but the sigh ill became his round, jolly face; it was merely to chime with the words of the song. He was walking, about six o'clock on the morning after the cricket-match, along the bank of a little hill-stream, rod in hand, yet not expecting to halt for a while, for he took no pains to moderate his voice. He was not alone. His companion was the youth who had won the match for Winton St. Mary on the previous day—Harry Rochester, the parson's son. Each carried a rod—the huge clumsy rod of those days, nearly seventeen feet in length; each was laden with wallet, landing-net, and other apparatus; and in fact they had already had an hour's sport with ground-bait, having risen from their beds soon after three on this ideal angler's morning. A haze lay over the ground, and a light rain was falling.
Sherebiah was several yards ahead, scanning the banks. His voice sank a little as he repeated the lines:
"'Tis a hodge-podge o' business, an' money, an' care,
An' care, an' money, an' trouble."
"Cheer up!" said Harry, behind him. "I like the second verse best, Sherry:
"'But we'll take no care when the weather proves fair,
Nor will we vex now though it rain—
He was interrupted by the sudden halt of Sherebiah. The man had swung round; his lips were shot out in the motion of shooing, a warning finger was held up. Harry's voice died away, and he hastened to his companion's side.
"Yonder's the spot," said Sherebiah in a whisper, pointing to a large pool, shaded with willows, some thirty yards ahead. "Mum's the word! They be sharp-eared, they trouts. 'Tis there I took ten lusty nibblers, ten year agoo come Michaelmas. Faith, 'twas all I could do to carry 'em; ay, and I shouldn' ha' got 'em home but for Tom Dorrell, t' carrier from Salisbury, who came trundlen along in his wagon. He be dead an' gone, poor soul, as must we all."
"And what did you do with them?" asked Harry with a smile.
Sherebiah was famous for his angling stories, and they had perhaps as much foundation as most. No one in the country-side knew the ways of the trout as he did; but he was equally at home in trolling for jack or pike, roving for perch, and sniggling for eels. None could match his knowledge of the flies in their several seasons: the hour of the day at which each is most killing; the merits of the silver twist hackle and the lady-fly, whether for dapping or whipping; when to use the black gnat, when the blue; under what conditions of the evening sky the shyest trout will rise to a red spinner. And who could tie a fly like Sherebiah Minshull? Many a time Harry had examined his rich store of materials—as varied as the contents of a witch's cauldron: feathers of every bird that flies, manifold silks and wires and hooks, wax and needles, hog's down and squirrel's fur. Many a time had he watched him dress a fly and thread a bait, and admired his dexterous whipping of the streams.