very well to know if true, and I got a bull's-eye
lantern to prove it.

Through a hayfield--half cut, 'twas--I went, where the moon throwed a
shadow beside each uplifted pook, and the air was heavy with the scent,
and a corncrake somewhere was making a noise like sharpening a scythe. A
few trout were rising at the night moths, but nothing moved of any account
in the open, and I pushed forward where the hayfield ended at the edge of
the woods. There, just fifty yards inside the trees, was one of the
properest pools on the river; and, having set my night-lines for a trout
or two higher up, I came down to the salmon pool, spear in hand, and lit
my lantern and got on a rock in the mid-channel, where 'twas clear and
still, with nought but the oily twist and twirl of the currents running
deep beneath me.

I felt so bold as a lion that night, for Squire Champernowne, of
Woodcotes, had died at dawn, and the countryside was all in a commotion,
and I knowed, what with talking and drinking in the pubs and running about
all day, that not a keeper would be to work after dark. A very good man
had been the Squire, though peppery and uncertain in his temper, and quick
to take offence, but honest and well-liked by all who worked for him.
'Twas one of they tragical moments, long expected but none the less
exciting, when death came, and I felt certain sure that I should have the
river to myself till morning.

But I was wrong. Looking upstream by good chance afore I got to work, I
saw a man in the meadow moonlight. There he was, making for the woods. He
was following the path I followed, and in five minutes I saw that he'd be
on the river-bank within ten yards of me. Of course, I thought the chap
was after me and had tracked me down. It astonished me a good bit to mark
him, and I saw he was a tall, slim man, much lighter than me, though very
near the same height. He didn't tally with my knowledge of any of the
Woodcotes keepers, so I felt better and hoped as it might be a stranger,
or a lunatic, or somebody as wouldn't be feeling any interest in me. But I
had to shift, of course, so I nipped off my rock and went under the bank
where the ivy fell over at the tail of the salmon pool. 'Twas a deep,
sandy-bottomed reach, with the bank dipping in steeply o' one side and a
shelving, pebbly ridge the other. The river narrowed at the bottom of the
pool and fell over a fall. So there I went, and looked through the ivy
unseen and watched my gentl