NEWMARKET 181 



shadow at the moment when you are half 

 persuading yourself that the monster, a live 

 green-backed fat fish, who, making no apparent 

 exercise of motive power, sleepily glides through 

 the gloom of the arch's shelter from the light for 

 a moment into view is the ghost of the King of 

 the Carp having his day out. Ghost he must be, 

 for surely no chap of that size could be alive and 

 not sought to his destruction ; if only of 

 fisherman's, not avoirdupois, weight, he is a 

 whopper ; and, seen through your half-closed 

 eyes, he might weigh a ton. The kingfisher's 

 doing away with dreamy estimates and breaking 

 up the party was, perhaps, as well, for the trudge 

 back to headquarters is long, refreshments scarce, 

 and stops to investigate odds and ends many. 

 Such as the keeper's cemetery, started with a 

 jackdaw and half-a-dozen squirrels ; a mavis's nest 

 low down in a willow's trunk, made of bent to 

 match the tree's own stringy growth from the 

 crown of its pollarding ; a stoat, sitting up for all 

 the world like a cobra about to strike ; an old 

 gentleman of my acquaintance, with a half-gallon 

 thirst after mowing a rough meadow down by the 

 little river that crosses the Thetford road handy 

 to the Red Lodge (good entertainment for man 

 and beast there), and others sure to be responsible 

 for detours and excursions that eat up time. 

 Talking about excursions, I hope I have not 

 been wandering at all, for if there is one thing on 

 which I pride myself it is sticking to my text. 

 In effect I begin with the cognac, I finish the 

 cognac. I never mix — but what price New- 

 market, this style, as a health-giver ? 



