Year: 1875

punt, and nearly caught me, now i'm the
lace and now by the legs. with the row
oi hooks, IN his clumsy attempts to cast
the line, which he stumbled over. trod
upon, and got ertangled about him, /
thought it time to expostulate. This
was useless. He had got it into his be-
sotted brain that L was some 'Tpal,, as
he called me, whom he had honOred by
bringing out to see him catch his Thames
trout. ! then insisted upon his putting
me ashore, for our position. as the punt
swung round in the boiling waters,
threatening now and then to suck us
beneath the fall and swamp US, was
more than critical. But he was deaf to
all threats or persuasions. The trout
he must have or meet the fury of another
element. Under these circumstances, |
did what L had often done before on'less
urgent occasions got out, and, steady
ing myself by the timbers. mounted the
sill or fixed beam of the weir itself,
which having no guiding rail, the foot
ing depended entirely upon a steady
eve and firm nerve, the more as the
running water over it had, although
but ankle deep. a constant inclination
TO carry one off his feet. Here with my
| spinning rod, which | had with some
difficulty managed 10 bring upon the
weir, L had every advantage, and, cast
ing very far down the stream, spun my
bart, small bleak, slowly back; and,
when about half the line was gathered
in, L felt a tremendous rush, which car
ried nearly all my line off the reel.
was therefore at once conscious / had
hold of formidable trout, and played
il with my usual GOODNESS and skill, for
such prey were not strangers to me,
either in that river or in other waters.
Ny operations had up to this point been
unobserved by my man, who was other
wise occupied. The beautiful creature,
however, throwing itself out of the
water in one of its noble efforts for free
dom. attracted the fisherman's S attention.
He uttered loud curse, threw the rod
down i'm the punt in evident rage, then
to my intense surprise, floundered out
of the punt on to the apron of the weir,
and commenced scrambling up to the
top of il. This was AL event certainly
did not anticipate. That it was this mad
mans design to contest with me the
capture of the fish L was soon made GER
tain of by his very gestures. And now
my fear was that the fellow, in the
state he-was in, would not be able to
keep his equilibrium-that he would
fall over, get washed off the apron be-
fore he could recover himself, and be
plunged into the pool, from which, if
he once got among the dead water under
the swirl, nothing but the greatest pres
ence of mind and full knowledge of
the peculiar nature of the currents could
possibly save him. Still he came on to
me with his arms outstretched, balanc-
ing himself upon the narrow and slip
perry beam which formed the crown of
the weir, like a boy walking on rail.
When he got within arms length of me
| warned him to keep his distance, and
earnestly besought him to recollect that
he was jeopardizing two lives by his
desperately rash and unaccountablec con-
duct


.Give me the rod ~ he shouted, with
an awful imprecation- ''The fish is
mine. will have it; l spotted il first.
Give me the rod. say" He now lit
orally foamed at the mouth with excite
ment. lie clutched me with one hand
bv the shoulder. and / felt the gripe of
the maniac $50 tenacious was his grasp
take up the muscle with my clothes.
With the other hand he made a snatch
at the rod, which was on my left, which
he had TO get partly in front of me to
reach. | would have resigned the tackle
willingly at this juncture. 1t was too
late. In his eXertions TO seize the rod
he had thrown himself out of balance,
and, feeling himself going over, he
seized me by the waistcoat with the hand
at liberty, and the next moment we
were both rolling over and over and
down the apron. A heavy splash, and
all was blank. Being, however, a skill
ful swimmer, and life at that moment
INV first consideration, kept my head
downward, as my only chance to rid
myself of the embarrassing hold of my
companion, which at once relaxed, when
became free to act. Knowing that if |
attempted Ia rise to the surface in the
spot / was / should only be carried
under again, and that if this was re-
peated two or three times L should be-
come exhausted, struck for the bottom,
and there found it dark and compara-
lively still. Here a thought flashed
across nv mind, by no means reassuring,
for had often reflected that if L ever
reached that spot, the probability was
that should be sucked under, and never
come up again. Instead, therefore, of
attempting to rise, crawled and SWAN
a dozen wards or so on the shingle, until
L saw the sheen of day above, which |
knew from its transparency to be the
still water of the eddy between the
Iashers. Now or never, and up L went,
rising, as | expected, in the eddy, which
whirled me several times round, and
then carried me into the run of the
water. At this moment my alarm was
great at finding | was tightly fastened
to something l summoned courage,
and ascertained that / had got entangled
i'm nv line, but. thanks to the confidence
| had acquired from my swimming
master in what he called ornamental
buoyancy, L threw myself on my back,
and. after little maneuvring, the cur
rent carried the line clear. Then few
vigorous strokes took me into the back
eddy. and | swan into wadeable water.
may here tell you that TO try to rise in
any other way in such an emergency Is
hopeless. Several persons have been
drowned in the pools OF these weirs on
the Thames, and their bodies have been
invariably found in the cavity worked
bv the water, with their hands stretched
out, as if endeayoring to push them
selves off, but were held there by the
suction"


Here MIR. Moffat paused, took long
breath, and, finding that his two boys
were perfectly transfixed with painful
suspense and attention, proceeded


"Well, directly 1 could look back, l
scanned every portion of the waters, but
could not see anything ofpoor Marcus.
"Marcus :" exclaimed the boys-'Mar-
, Gus Deepn'


eyes. that was the poor fellows name
and have had his death lying like a
frozen chill upon my conscience ever
since"


'But. father" interposed Charley.
81 know, my boy, what you would
+ say: that it was the mans own fault
that he might have been my murderer
as well as his own. / have thought OF
all that. But it affords no consolation
as, knowing the state the man was in,
l ought at once to have surrendered the
, ,,l xrax- IN his him No.