Page:Yeast. A Problem - Kingsley (1851).djvu/95

"Well, I'll go and get myself a couple of bait. Don't you stir, my good parson-keeper. Down charge, I say! Odd if I don't find a bait-net, and a rod for myself, under the verandah.'

'You will, colonel. I remember, now, I set it there last morning; but the water washed many things out of my brains, and some things into them—and I forgot it, like a goose.'

'Well, good-by, and lie still. I know what a drowning is, and more than one. A day and a night have I been in the deep, like the man in the good book; and bed is the best of medicine for a ducking;' and the colonel shook him kindly by the hand and disappeared.

Lancelot sat down by the keeper's bed.

'You'll get those fish-hooks into your trowsers, sir; and this is a poor place to sit down in.'

'I want you to say your say out, friend, fish hooks or none.'

The keeper looked warily at the door, and when the colonel had passed the window, balancing the trolling-rod on his chin, and whistling merrily, he began,―

' 'day and a night have I been in the deep!'—and brought back no more from it! And yet the Psalms say how they that go down to the sea in ships see the works of the Lord!—If the Lord has opened their eyes to see them, that must mean.'

Lancelot waited.

'What a gallant gentleman that is, and a valiant