Part 46 (1/2)
”Down yonder, by one of the pools”
”Oh, then you o that way home”
”Yes, father, and I have two fish”
”Well done”
”I say, father, I feel sure that Leather did not kick that sheep”
”Who did then?” said the doctor
”I don't like to say, father”
”That is suggesting your belief that it was Brookes, a man whom I have always found to ell in ainst me”
”Do you think the other o on your way, and I'll go home One word, Nic I want you to enjoy yourself, but I cannot have my men taken away from their work,the sheep, and as Nic stood for a few ive a piteous baa, as if protesting against its treated shoulders
Nic was too far off to see the expression of the men's faces, but he felt pretty certain that Brookes's was anything but pleasant, and he felt glad
”I believe he did that out of spite against Leather,” thought Nic, ”so as to h, a man could hardly be such a brute”
Nic descended into the little valley onceby the stream to the pool where he had left his rod
”There's one more locust,” he said to himself; ”and I'll try and catch another fish Three will make a much better show I dare say one would bite directly;” and deter to his brace, he hurried on, thinking how beautiful the great, dense clump of trees on the other side of the strearacefully over the water
”The beauty of a place like this is,” he thought, ”that you can leave things about and there is no one to take them”
He sers, and baited the hook with the great insect ready to cast right over into the streaht be washed naturally into the sunlit pool
”Now, if I can catch another as big as the--Hullo! where are those fish?”
Nic did not cast the locust, but stared hard at the spot where the fish had been laid down upon so with slione
”They must have flopped their way back into the water,” said Nic to himself; ”they went that way because it was all on a slope Well, of all the tiresome nuisances I ever knew, this is about the worst I wouldn't have lost those fish for anything They must have flopped to and fro down here and over that soft place”
Nic's thoughts stood still The soft place he alluded to was close down to the shallohere Leather had waded in, and the water which had dripped froe and soft, dank,else--footprints! Not Leather's, made by broad shoe-soles, but newly i toe in each case being rather thumb-like in its separation from the others
For some two or threeat those footprints Then he glanced sharply over the shallows at the thick foliage, fully expecting to see a spear co at him
”That's the waya sudden check the nextover his shoulder, and a thrill of fear ran through him as he turned sharply round, when snap went the line, and he saw that the hook and locust were sticking in an overhanging bough, and about a yard of the line was hanging down
That was enough to drive away soht blacks with fishi+ng-rods,” an to run, and he made his way homeward more quickly than he had coh if he had it was doubtful whether he would have seen the cunning black face peering fro hih the trees, and then disappearing as soon as Nic was out of sight