"Try my peas, sir." _Pop_! "There's a pod. Dozen fine uns, just as if
they was a row o' green teeth laughing at you."

"Deliciously tender, Sam; but--"

"It's the sun, Master Nic; it's the sun," said the old man, who was too
much wrapped up in his subject to heed the boy's remarks. "Sun's a
scarce article at home, but here you gets it all day long, and it's the
clouds is scarce. Why, you know summer at home, where the skies seem
all like so much sopping wet flannel being squeezed; and not a sign o'
sunshine for six weeks. What's to grow then?"

"Nothing, I suppose, Sam; but--"

"Of course you wants the water, sir. More sun you gets more water you
wants, and that's why I tiddles it all along through the garden from up
above yonder, just ketching it above where it comes over the waterfall."

"Yes, waterfall, Sam," cried Nic heartily. "I say, didn't you catch a
lot of fish up there somewhere and bring home one day when my father was
out?"

"To be sure I did," said the old man, now beginning to lend an ear.

"That's right. I want to catch some too."

"You'd ketch 'em then, my lad. There's lots on 'em."

"Tell me how you caught them. What did you use for bait?"

"Shovel," said the old man, grinning.

"What?"

"And peckaxe."

"I don't understand you."

"Why, it's plain enough, sir. It was when I was turning a hole into a
sort o' ressywar to supply the garden--irrigglygate it, the master said,
but I calls it watering."

"But I was talking about the fish, Sam."

"I know, sir; so was I. `How did you ketch 'em?' says you. `Shovel,'
says I. I was making a place beyond the waterfall, and they swimmed in
a hole there, where they'd got and couldn't get out again. So I makes a
dyke with the peck and turns the water off and then ladles the fish out
with the shovel. Two basketsful there was. One I took indoors for the
ladies, and t'other we ate; and Brooky put away so many they made him
queer for some days. But they didn't hurt me."

"But I wanted to fish for them with a rod and line."

"Oh-h-oh!" cried the old man. "You won't get many that-a-way. P'r'aps
it would be best for you though. It's nation hard work pecking and
digging, making dams and gullies among the rocks when the sun's hot."

"But I want some bait."

"Ay, you'll want some bait. We used to ketch eels at home with a big
wum. There's lots here--whackers, some on 'em. Shall I get you a few?"

"Yes, do, please."

"So I wil