268 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



and proceeded to take to pieces and put up his 

 neat little rod. At first I watched him doing this, 

 proud of my prowess and of the battle I had won, 

 and thinking of the pleasure it would give me to 

 tell of the victory to my hrothers. Someho^y or 

 other, however, there was an impressive grace 

 and quietude about the old man's hands, as ho 

 arranged his neat and nicely kept fishing-tackle, 

 which won upon my hot heart, and induced me 

 to think that I was a tyrant, and tliat in this 

 instance my acts were harsh and unkind ; and 

 when, Avithout another word, he turned to pro- 

 ceed in the direction of the old Cranford Bridge 

 Inn, perhaps for one evening to relieve himself 

 from his laborious work in London, so calm, so 

 quiet, and so ill-used, but forgiving, did his re- 

 treating form appear, that I was seized with a 

 choking sensation, as if I should burst into 

 tears. 



The oak bough from which I had drojDj^ed, 

 was too high for me to attain again, so I spattered 

 through the water over a gravelly shoal, and was 

 soon in full chase of the receding figure. Ap- 

 parently he had forgotten all about me, and 

 perhaps forgiven me, for he rather started as my 



