e guns, and we find the game, and mark the game,--and then they
call themselves sportsmen; we choose the flies, and we bait the
spinning-hooks, and we show them where the fish lie, and then when
they've hooked them, they can't get them out without us and the
spoonnet; and then they go home to the ladies and boast of the lot
of fish they killed--and who thinks of the keeper?'

'Oh! ah! Then don't say old Harry knows nothing, then. How nicely,
now, you and I might get a living off this 'ere manor, if the
landlords was served like the French ones was. Eh, Paul?' chuckled
old Harry. 'Wouldn't we pay our taxes with pheasants and grayling,
that's all, eh? Ain't old Harry right now, eh?'

The old fox was fishing for an assent, not for its own sake, for he
was a fierce Tory, and would have stood up to be shot at any day,
not only for his master's sake, but for the sake of a single
pheasant of his master's; but he hated Tregarva for many reasons,
and was daily on the watch to entrap him on some of his peculiar
points, whereof he had, as we shall find, a good many.

What would have been Tregarva's answer, I cannot tell; but Lancelot,
who had unintentionally overheard the greater part of the
conversation, disliked being any longer a listener, and came close
to them.

'Here's your gudgeons and minnows, sir, as you bespoke,' quoth
Harry; 'and here's that paternoster as you gave me to rig up.
Beautiful minnows, sir, white as a silver spoon.--They're the ones
now, ain't they, sir, eh?'

'They'll do!'

'Well, then, don't say old Harry don't know nothing, that's all,
eh?' and the old fellow toddled off, peering and twisting his head
about like a starling.

'An odd old fellow that, Tregarva,' said Lancelot.

'Very, sir, considering who made him,' answered the Cornishman,
touching his hat, and then thrusting his nose deeper than ever into
the eel-basket.

'Beautiful stream this,' said Lancelot, who had a continual longing-
-right or wrong--to chat with his inferiors; and was proportionately
sulky and reserved to his superiors.

'Beautiful enough, sir,' said the keeper, with an emphasis on the
first word.

'Why, has it any other fault?'

'Not so wholesome as pretty, sir.'

'What harm does it do?'

'Fever, and ague, and rheumatism, sir.'

'Where?' asked Lancelot, a little amused by the man's laconic
answers.

'Wherever the white fog spreads, sir.'

'Where's that?'

'Everywhere, sir