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Will of the Mill, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 13. The Alarm |
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_ CHAPTER THIRTEEN. THE ALARM A fortnight had glided by. The dam was kept more than full by hours of stormy weather high up in the hills many miles away; but the stream had resumed its gentle course, the trout were back in their old haunts, Manners had finished one of his landscapes and begun another, and one soft, sweet, very early autumn evening three busy pairs of hands where at work at the round table plainly visible in the light cast by Mrs Drinkwater's shaded lamp. "No," said Will, who was holding something in a pair of pliers in his left hand, and winding a thread of silk brought up from the mill round it with his right, "he hasn't been near us yet. Josh and I keep running against him in the woods, or up one of the river paths; but, as soon as he sees us, he turns his back and goes in among the trees." "Shies at us," interpolated Josh. "Yes," said Will, softly, as he wound away, his face screwed up and looking intent to a degree. "Shies! I say, Mr Manners, you, living here, see him every day, of course?" "No, I don't," said the artist. "He has his breakfast before I'm down, and goes off and doesn't come back till after dark. The missus, poor soul, told me yesterday--crying away like your old mill-wheel--that he takes a bit of bread and cheese with him and goes off to sit and mope somewhere in the woods. He never hardly speaks to her. She said, poor thing, that she'd give anything to see him back at his regular work." "Ha!" cried Will, holding up the something proudly upon which he had been at work. "Now, I call that something like a coachman." "Not a bit," said Josh. "How can a little hook, a thread of gut, a few small feathers, and some dubbing, be like a coachman?" "Get out, Clevershakes! What an old chop-logic you are! I didn't christen that kind of artificial fly a coachman; but it's a well-made one, isn't it, Mr Manners?" "Well, yes, very nicely made; but it's not a London maker's idea of a jarvey." "No," said Will, "but it's the sort that will catch the fish. You'd never guess whose make that is." "Why, it's yours, my lad." "Yes; but you don't know who taught me." "Not I; but I should like you to make me half a dozen more." "All right; I will; a dozen, if you like. They suit our waters fine. That's old Boil O's pattern. He taught me; he used to say that the proper way to make a fly was to watch the real one first, and make it as near as you could like that--not take a copy from somebody's book." "Quite right," said the artist; "old Boil O's a philosopher." "I wish he was a sensible man instead," said Will. "I've been thinking, Mr Manners, that as you live here and know him so well--" "That I don't," cried the artist. "I never knew less of any man in my life." "Well, never mind that; you live here, and I think it would be very nice if you'd get hold of him and talk sensibly, like you can." "Thank you for the compliment, my young judge." "I say, don't poke fun, Mr Manners; I want to talk seriously." "That's right; I like to hear you sometimes, my young joker. I wouldn't give a sou for a fellow who was all fun." "Well, look here, Mr Manners; I want you to let him see what a jolly old stupid he is making of himself. Of course father can't come and ask him to return to work, but I know that dad would shake hands with him at once, and be as pleased as Punch." "Well," said the artist, dryly, "I can't quite see in my own mind your grave and reverend parent looking as pleased as Punch; it doesn't seem quite in his way." "Of course not; but you know what I mean." "Well, I guess at it, boy; and you mean what is quite right. I should be very glad to do anything for either of you, and to put an end to a melancholy state of affairs; but look here, my dear boy, I don't think that I should be doing right as an outsider, such a bird of passage as I am, to say more to Drinkwater than I have already done. He knows what I think; but I want to be friends with everybody here, and I feel sure that by interfering further I should be turning ray landlord into an enemy. I am obliged to say 'no.' And now, if you please, we'll go on with our fly-making, and get our tackle ready for another turn at the trout." "Well, I am very sorry," said Will, sadly, "and--" "Whatever's that?" cried Josh, springing to his feet and staring wildly through the open window. "Eh? Whatever's what?" said the artist, slowly, looking in the same direction. "Why, as Pat would say, it isn't to-morrow morning, and the sun never rises in the west, or he'd be getting up now. Why, by all that's wonderful, it's--" "Fire! Fire!" shouted Will, wildly. "Yes," cried Josh, in a husky voice, "and it's at the mill." _ |
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