CHAPTER III

THE FISHERMAN

From a little green book, which, from the evidence of its worn covers, seemed to have been much read, the tall, military-appearing occupant of a middle seat in the parlor car of the express to Colchester scanned again this pa.s.sage:

"And if you rove for perch with a minnow, then it is best to be alive, you sticking your hook through his back fin, or a minnow with the hook in his upper lip, and letting him swim up and down about mid-water, or a little lower, and you still keeping him about that depth with a cork, which ought to be a very little one; and the way you are to fish for perch with a small frog--"

"Ah-a-a-a!"

It was a long-drawn exclamation of antic.i.p.atory delight, and into the eyes of the military-looking traveler there appeared a soft and gentle light, as though, in fancy, he could look off across sunlit meadows to a stream sparkling beneath a blue sky, white-studded with fleecy clouds, where there was a soft carpet of green gra.s.s, shaded by a n.o.ble oak under which he might lounge and listen to the wind rustling the newly-born leaves.

"Ah-a-a-a!"

"Beg pardon, sir, but I--"

"What?"

The military-appearing man sat up with a jerk into sudden stiffness, while the soft light died out of his eyes.

"New York papers?"

"Don't want the New York papers--any of them!"

The man, after a swift glance from his green-covered book, again let his eyes seek its pages. The ghost of a smile flickered around his lips.

"Chicago, then. The latest--"

". . . your hook being fastened through the skin of his leg, toward the upper part of it; and lastly I will give you--"

"Something livelier in the way of reading, sir, if you wish it!" broke in the voice of the newsboy who had stopped beside the parlor-car chair of the military-looking traveler, interrupting the reading of the little green-covered book. "I have a new detective story--"

"Look here! If you interrupt me again when I'm reading my Izaak Walton I'll have you put off the train! Gad! I will, sir, if I have to do it myself!"

The military-appearing traveler snapped the green book against the palm of one hand with a report like that of a pistol, thereby causing an old lady, asleep in a chair across the aisle, to awaken with a start.

"Are we in? Have we arrived? Is this Colchester?" she asked, sitting up and looking about in startled surprise, her bonnet very much askew.

The newsboy, with an abashed air, slid down the aisle.

"Madam, I sincerely beg your pardon," said the tall man who had caused the commotion. He arose, his green book in one hand, and bowed his apologies. "I regret exceedingly that I startled you. But that insufferable young puppy had the extreme audacity to inflict himself on me when I was reading, and I lost my temper. I am sorry but I--"

"You didn't strike him, did you?" asked the old lady, reproachfully.

"No, madam. Though such conduct would have been justified on my part, I merely spoke to him. It was this--this book that I used rather roughly and which awakened you."

"Then aren't we at Colchester yet?"

"No, madam. It is some little ride yet. If you will allow me I shall be happy to let you know when we arrive. And if you are without any one to help you off with your luggage, as it is raining and likely to continue--"

"Oh, thank you, sir, but Jabez will meet me. I must have dozed off, and when I heard that noise--"

"Which I regret exceedingly, madam," interposed the military-appearing traveler with another bow.

The old lady again composed herself. The tall man bowed again, resumed his seat and tried to read, but his feelings had been too much ruffled, it was evident, to allow a peaceful resumption of his former mood.

"The idea! The very idea!" he murmured, speaking to the window, against the gla.s.s of which the raindrops were now dashing impotently, and as though angry at not being admitted to the warmth and light of the car. For dusk had fallen and the electric lights were aglow in the Pullman, making it a very cosy place in contrast to the damp and muddy country through which the train was rushing.

"Gad! what's the world coming to when a man can't read what he likes without every whippersnapper interrupting him with--s.h.a.g! I say, s.h.a.g!" he went on, raising his voice from a murmured whisper to a louder command. "Porter, send my man here! Where's that rascal s.h.a.g?"

"Yes, sah, Colonel! I'm right yeah! Yeah I is, Colonel!" and a negro, with a picturesque fringe of white, kinky hair, shuffled from the porter's quarters, where he had been enjoying a quiet chat with the black knight of the whisk broom. "What is you' desire, Colonel?"

"I want peace and quiet, s.h.a.g! That's what I want! Twice I've tried to read my book undisturbed, and that insufferable train-boy--that rascal who probably doesn't know an ant-fly from a piece of cheese--has bothered me with books and papers. He ought to know I've vowed not to look at a paper for two weeks, and, as for books--"

Colonel Robert Lee Ashley closed his volume, which bore, in gold letters on the front green cover the words: "Walton's Complete Angler,"

and laughed silently, the wrinkles of his face and around his steel-blue eyes sending the frown scurrying for some unseen trench.

"s.h.a.g," asked the colonel, still chuckling, "what do you think that nincomp.o.o.p had the infernal audacity to offer me in the way of a book?"

"I ain't got no idea, Colonel--not th' leastest in th' world!"

"He offered me a--detective story, s.h.a.g!"

"Oh, mah good Lord, Colonel! Not _really_?"

"Yes, he did, s.h.a.g! A detective story!"

"Oh, mah good Lord!"

s.h.a.g, which was all Colonel Ashley ever called his servant, though the colored valet rejoiced in the prefixes of George Washington, threw up his hands in horror, and shook his head. The colonel, after a period of silent, chuckling mirth, opened his book again and read:

"And, after this manner, you may catch a trout in a hot evening. When, as you walk by a brook, and shall hear or see him leap at flies, then if you get a gra.s.shopper--"

"Gad! that's the life!" softly voiced the colonel. Then, turning to the still waiting s.h.a.g, he went on: "There's n.o.body in the wide world who can bring peace and quiet to an angry mind like my friend Izaak Walton, is there, s.h.a.g?"

"No, sah, Colonel, they isn't! _n.o.body_!"

"Of course not! Gad! I'm glad you agree with me, s.h.a.g!"

"Yes, sah, Colonel."

"Um! Here, you go and give that newsboy a quarter. Tell him I didn't mean anything; but never again must he interrupt me when he sees me with Walton in my hand. Anything but that! It's positively indecent!"

"Yes, sah, Colonel. I done tell him that."

"And it--it's sacrilegious, s.h.a.g!"

"Yes, sah, Colonel; 'tis that!"