Zebedee Fuller was the last boy in the village to interfere with anything like a practical joke, and his warning to “the boys” did not go beyond his own particular set.
Still, the way in which the mill and the pond were watched, that day, was a lesson for the detective service.
The hour at which old Gersh Todderley started out in his antiquated buggy, and the hour of his return, as well as every “in and out” of Pat Murphy himself, were carefully noted by one youngster or another, nor did the discontented blackbirds have a fair show at their willow-tree perches during all those weary hours of patient waiting.
At last, as the sun sank lower and lower in the west, the accustomed time arrived for such of the village boys as declined the long, hot walk to the lake, to trouble the smooth waters of the mill-pond and the unsympathizing soul of Gershom Todderley.
Pat Murphy was somehow more than usually busy at the grist-mill; the saw of the sawmill had been quiet for weeks.
There was really no reason why the boys should not have had a good time with their spring-board and the cool, cleansing, refreshing water—no reason at all but the dog-in-the-manger spirit of old Gersh Todderley.
But the accustomed squad of young “dolphins” forbade to come, for some cause or other, and Pat Murphy came to the north window of the mill, for the hundredth time, all in vain.
“Faix,” he said to himself, “it’s a pity to take so much throuble as all that for nothing. Sorra one on ’em’s showed himself near the pond the day.”
Even as he spoke, however, though he had turned back to his endless clatter and dust, and saw it not, the seeming solitude of the pond was being invaded.
Down the stream, from the bushes that concealed its winding course through the valley above, there drifted a clumsy, scow-built punt, the pride of Zeb Fuller’s heart, and in it with him were three of his most trusted friends, for, only three minutes before, Zeb had been advised by a trusty scout of a very important and promising occurrence.