England -- Fiction; France -- Fiction; Short stories, English
And that was the way always. He was such an elder brother to me--a
thing I never had and do not want--that a dozen times a day I set my
teeth viciously together and said to myself that if ever we met in
London--but what nonsense that was, because, of course, it mattered
nothing to me what he was thinking, only he had no right to be so
rudely familiar. That was all; but it was quite enough to make me
dislike him.
However, a sunny morning in the holidays is a cheerful thing, and when
I strolled down stream with my rod on the day after our expedition, I
felt I could enjoy myself very nearly as much as I had before his
coming spoiled our party. I dawdled along, now trying a pool, now
clambering up the hillsides to pick raspberries, and now counting the
magpies that flew across, feeling altogether very placid and good and
contented. I had chosen the lower river because Mr. Herapath usually
fished the upper part, and I would not be ruffled this nice day. So I
was the more vexed to come suddenly upon him fishing; and fishing
where he had no right to be. Papa had spoken to him about the danger
of it, and he had as good as said he would not do it again. Yet there
he was, thinking, I dare say, that we should not know. It was a spot
where one bank rose into quite a cliff, frowning over a deep pool at
the foot of some falls. Close to the cliff the water still ran with
the speed of a mill-race, so fast as to endanger a good swimmer. But
on the far side of this current there was a bit of slack water which
was tempting enough to have set some one's wits to work to devise
means to fish it, which from the top of the cliff was impossible. Just
above the water was a ledge, a foot wide, perhaps, which might have
done, only it did not reach to this end of the cliff. However, that
foolhardy person had espied this, and got over the gap by bridging the
latter with a bit of plank, and then had drowned himself or gone away,
in either case leaving his board to tempt others to do likewise.
And there was Mr. Herapath fishing from the ledge. It made me giddy to
look at him. The rock overhung the water so much that he could not
stand upright; the first person who got there must surely have learned
to curl himself up from much sleeping in Norwegian beds, which were
short for me. I thought of this oddly enough as I watched him, and
laughed, and was for going on. But when I had walked a few yards,
meaning to pass round the rear of the cliff, I began to fancy all
sorts of foolish things would happen. I felt sure that I should have
no more peace or pleasure if I left him there. I hesitated. Yes, I
would. I would go down, and ask him to leave the place; and, of
course, he would do it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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