Jack laughed, however, in spite of his mystification, and said, "Who was old Spavinshanks? The worm?"
"Not a bit of it," returned Sandboys. "Old Spavinshanks was that old gray horse Mr. Bingle paid ten dollars for thirty years ago, and has been earning fifteen dollars a day out of every summer every year since. I borrered him, though Bingle didn't know it, and that's how I came to get the big haul, and my, what a wet and muddy beast he was when he got back into the stable that night! He was so muddy they thought he was the black mare for a minute.
"The way it came about was this. I got word one day that an old schoolmate o' mine I hadn't seen for two years was down at the Flume, and I thought I'd like to go down and see him. So I went to old Bingle, and asked him to let me have a horse and buggy to drive down there in, for, as you know, it's over five miles from here. Bingle looked at me calmly for a second, and said all right. The reg'lar fare down an' back is ten dollars. You can have the rig for six—four dollars off. He knew I couldn't pay it, and I told him so. Well what of it, says he. You don't think I'm keepin' a livery-stable for fun, do ye? No, says I, but I've done lots o' things for you for nothin'; you might do somethin' for me. Well I will, says he. Next winter, when there ain't no call for hoss-and-buggies, you can have the rig free. Now it'll cost you six dollars. That made me mad, an' as it was in days when I didn't think much about right or wrong, not havin' studied theeligy, as I have since, I made up my mind to have the rig, an' have it free. And when I make up my mind to a thing, it's as good as done. I had the rig when night came on an' I was through with my day's work, and old Bingle had locked up for the night and gone to bed—he generally got so tired figerin' up his profits at night he went to bed about half past eight—I sneaked down to the barn, took old Spavinshanks, harnessed him up to the buggy, and started off for the Flume. I spent a very pleasant evening with my friend Silas, and along about eleven o'clock I started back home again. Everything went well until I got up to within a half-mile of the lake, when it began to rain like buckets. I never see such a pour in all my life.
"'Whoa!' says I to old Spav., an' when he come to a standstill I fastened the reins to the whip-stock, an' jumped out to put up the leather cover of the buggy. I wasn't goin' to be drenched if I could help it. Spav. stood still enough whilst I was fixin' the buggy-top and fastenin' down the flaps at the sides. He was a good old horse, and had worked so hard for the money he'd earned for Bingle that he hadn't any false pride about bein' skittish. He was just a tired, sensible old hoss. But there's a limit to what horses'll stand, an' when lightnin' strikes a tree back of 'em, with a noise like a slew of artillery let off all to once, no self-respectin' hoss can be asked to stand quiet. That's what happened. Just as I was gettin' ready to get back into the buggy again, flash! boom! comes the streak, and Spav simply flew off in a great scare. As he approached the lake he shied, an' when he got to the part of the road that's right on the lake he lost his senses and plunged in, the buggy, with the top up, trailin' after him. I was kerflummexed that time, I can tell you. I thought sure Spavinshanks'ld be drownded and the buggy bust, but it didn't happen that way at all. He swam right around the lake, luggin' the buggy right along too, an' by the time I got to the boat-house he was nearin' the shore just beyond. I made a rush for him, and as he came out had him by the bridle, and inside of five minutes we was at the barn. There he was, covered with mud and the buggy just reekin' with fish. There was two hundred an' twenty trout, forty-seven suckers, and 'most a million minnows—every one of 'em caught in the buggy-top!"
"Dear me!" cried Jack. "Really?"
"Yes, really," said Sandboys. "An' that's why there's so few fish left in that lake now. Old Spavinshanks must have hauled that buggy through every blessed school in the place. Which is why I say that while that trout we see to-day was the record trout, he ain't no record haul for one cast, not by a long shot, by hookey."
And the boys agreed with him that it was indeed a marvellous haul, and with a mighty strange kind of tackle too. Nor did they wonder that Sandboys was reluctant to have Mr. Bingle hear of it. Hardly any owner of horses would care to have his horse and buggy used in exactly that way, no matter of how grasping or of how generous a spirit he might be.