WASTE LANDS AND WASTE WATERS. 145 



man, who, wlien asked if a man for whom there 

 was an inquiry was ^' still there," gave for the 

 reply, — ^^No, that he was gone.'' 



^' Gone I where to ? " was the rejoinder of the querist. 



^'I canna tak on myseP just to say whar he's 

 f/one to, but he 's dead,'- was the cautious conclusion 

 to the dialogue. 



The only way in which we can account for all 

 old ponds, from time immemorial, to have been 

 stocked with that horrible fish, the carp, is, that 

 in days long gone, when there Avere more Roman 

 Catholics and less sea Jish, it was deemed necessary 

 to have something like a fish to put before the 

 poorer ecclesiastics or l^rethren, and perhaps to 

 eat a carp might have been deemed, and very 

 naturally so, a penance for sin. I doubt very much 

 if an abbot, or any soul who had anything else 

 to cat, ever touched that fish for sustenance. This 

 strange love of the carp has been handed down 

 to many unthinking Protestants of the j^rescnt 

 day ; for, with astonishment, I have had the 

 question of ^^Wliat fish were in the ponds I 

 saw?" answered with the unblushing assurance 

 that '' thei/ liad put carp into the ponds, but had 

 never seen them again." 



VOL. II. . L 



