'I am in a sore strait,' he groaned; 'I know not what to do. Would to heaven that my course were determined for me.'
He had reached the towpath beside the canal.
'Good-night, sir.'
He was startled. The night watch had met him, the man employed to walk around and through the factories at all hours of the night, on the look-out against fire, on guard against burglars.
'Good-night, sir. Just been on the bank to look at the river. Very full, and swelling instead of going down. Lot of rain fallen of late. Cold for the goldfish yonder.'
'Good-night,' answered the manufacturer; 'I also want to see the river. There is more rain yonder.'
He pointed to the western sky.
'The river is rising rapidly,' said the man; 'but there's no harm can take Pennyquick's—ligs too high.' Jeremiah's factory went by his surname, but contracted by the people through the omission of a syllable.
Then the man passed on his way, rattling his keys. The gold-fish! What did he mean?
Outside the wall of Mr. Pennycomequick's factory was a pool, into which the waste steam and boiling water from the engine discharged, and this pool was always hot. It swarmed with gold-fish. At some time or other, no one knew when, or by whom, a few, perhaps only a pair, had been thrown in, and now the little patch of water was thronged with fish. They throve, they multiplied therein. The mill girls cast crumbs to them from their breakfasts and dinners, and were allowed to net some occasionally for their private keeping in glass globes, but not to make of them an article of traffic. There was not a cottage in Pennyquick's Fold that had not such a vessel in the window.