Nelly does thank Heaven, rejoiced to hear they are saved—but without in the least comprehending how!
Volume One—Chapter Six.
A Ducking Deserved.
Captain Ryecroft has been but a few minutes at his favourite fishing place—just long enough to see his tackle in working condition, and cast his line across the water; as he does the last, saying—
“I shouldn’t wonder, Wingate, if we don’t see a salmon to-day. I fear that sky’s too bright for his dainty kingship to mistake feathers for flies.”
“Ne’er a doubt the fish’ll be a bit shy,” returns the boatman; “but,” he adds, assigning their shyness to a different cause, “’tain’t so much the colour o’ the sky; more like it’s that lot of Foresters has frightened them, with their hulk o’ a boat makin’ as much noise as a Bristol steamer. Wonder what brings such rubbish on the river anyhow. They han’t no business on’t; an’ in my opinion theer ought to be a law ’gainst it—same’s for trespassin’ after game.”
“That would be rather hard lines, Jack. These mining gentry need out-door recreation as much as any other sort of people. Rather more I should say, considering that they’re compelled to pass the greater part of their time underground. When they emerge from the bowels of the earth to disport themselves on its surface, it’s but natural they should like a little aquatics; which you, by choice, an amphibious creature, cannot consistently blame them for. Those we’ve just met are doubtless out for a holiday, which accounts for their having taken too much drink—in some sense an excuse for their conduct. I don’t think it at all strange seeing them on the water.”
“Their faces han’t seed much o’ it anyhow,” observes the waterman, seeming little satisfied with the Captain’s reasoning. “And as for their being out on holiday, if I an’t mistook, it be holiday as lasts all the year round. Two o’ ’em may be miners—them as got the grimiest faces. As for t’other two, I don’t think eyther ever touch’t pick or shovel in their lives. I’ve seed both hangin’ about Lydbrook, which be a queery place. Besides, one I’ve seed ’long wi’ a man whose company is enough to gi’e a saint a bad character—that’s Coracle Dick. Take my word for’t, Captain, there ain’t a honest miner ’mong that lot—eyther in the way of iron or coal. If there wor I’d be the last man to go again them havin’ their holiday; ’cepting I don’t think they ought to take it on the river. Ye see what comes o’ sich as they humbuggin’ about in a boat?”