ark pool as soon as the rest of the channel should be drained, which
took a tormenting time to do; and having thick boots on, I pinned up my
skirts, and jumping down into the shoals, began to paddle in a fashion
which reminded me of childish days passed pleasantly in the Blue River.

Too busy thus to give a thought to any other thing, I did not even see
the miller, until he said,

"Good-day, miss," lifting his hat, with a nice kind smile. "Very busy,
miss, I see, and right you are to be so. The water will be upon us again
in less than half an hour. Now let me clear away they black weeds for
you. I brought this little shivel a-purpose. If I may make so bold,
miss, what do 'e look to find here?"

"I have not the very smallest notion," I could only answer; "but if
there is any thing, it must be in that hole. I have searched all the
shallow part so closely that I doubt whether even a sixpence could
escape me, unless it were buried in the mud or pebbles. Oh, how can I
manage to search that hole? There must be a yard of water there."

"One thing I ought to have told 'e for to do," Master Withypool
whispered, as he went on shoveling--"to do what the boys do when they
lose a farden--to send another after un. If so be now, afore the water
was run out, you had stood on that there bridge, and dropped a bright
coin into it, a new half crown or a two-shilling piece, why, the chances
would be that the run of the current would 'a taken it nigh to the
likeliest spot for holding any other little matter as might 'a dropped,
permiskous, you might say, into this same water."

"I have done so," I answered; "I have done that very thing, though not
at all with that object. The day before yesterday a beautiful coin, a
golden eagle of America, fell from my pocket on that upper plank, and
rolled into the water. I would not lose it for a great deal, because it
was given to me by my dearest friend, the greatest of all millers."

"And ha'n't you found it yet, miss? Well, that is queer. Perhaps we
shall find it now, with something to the back of it. I thought yon hole
was too far below the bridge. But there your gold must be, and something
else, most likely. Plaise to wait a little bit, and us 'll have the wet
out of un. I never should 'a thought of that but for your gold guinea,
though."

With these words Master Withypool pulled his coat off and rolled up his
shirt sleeves, displaying arms fit to hold their own even with Uncle
Sam's almost;