“Well, Judith,” began the boy in a tone of resentment, “what do you think of this?”
“I don’t know what to dare to think of it, sir,” was Judith’s answer, “Nothing in all my life has ever come over me like it.”
“Judith, you know papa. Now, do you believe it within the range of possibility—possibility, mind you—that he should put prussic acid, through a careless mistake, into a sleeping draught?” he continued, in excitement.
“Master Frederick, I do not believe that he put it in.”
“But now, look here. I was present when that medicine was mixed up. I saw everything my father put into it, watched every motion, and I declare that it was mixed correctly. I happened to be there, leaning with my arms on the counter in a sort of idle fit. When papa came in with Mr. Fisher, he told me to go home to my Latin, but I was in no hurry to obey, and lingered on. I am glad now I did! Well, that draught, I can declare, was properly and safely compounded; and yet, when it gets to Mrs. Crane’s, there’s said to be poison in it, and she drinks it and dies! Who is to explain it or account for it?”
Judith did not reply. The hard look, telling of some strange perplexity, was overshadowing her face again.
“And the town lays the blame upon papa! They say—oh, I wont' repeat to you all they say. But, Judith, there are a few yet who don’t believe him guilty.”
“I, for one,” she answered.
“Ay, Judith, I———”
The lad paused. Then he suddenly bent forward and whispered something in her ear. Her pale face turned crimson as she listened, and she put up her hands deprecatingly, essaying to stop him.
“Hush, hush, Master Grey! Be silent, sir.”
“Judith, for two pins I’d say it aloud.”
“I’d rather you said it aloud than said it to me, sir.”
There was a pause. Frederick Grey threw back his head in the manner he was rather given to, when anything annoyed him, and there was a fearless, resolute expression on his face which caused Judith to fear he was going to speak aloud. She hastened to change the subject.
“I suppose there will be an inquest, sir?”
“An inquest! I should just think so. If ever there was a case demanding an inquest, it’s this one. If the verdict goes against my father, it will be my fault.” And he forthwith described to her how he had wiped the cobwebs from the jar. “The worst of it is, speaking of minor considerations,” he went on, “that nobody knows where to write to her friends, or whether she has any. My father says you took a letter to the post for her.”
“So I did, and the police have just asked me about it,” replied Judith; “but I did not notice the address, except that it was London. It was to that Mrs. Smith who came down and took away the baby.”
They are going to try and find that woman. Carlton says she ought to be found if possible, because, through her, we may come at some knowledge of who Mrs. Crane was, and he has given a description of her to the police; he saw her on Sunday night at Great Wennock Station. And now I must make a run for it, Judith, or I shall catch it for loitering.”
The boy ran off. Judith gazed after him as one lost in thought, her countenance resuming its look of hardness, its mazed perplexity.
THE ROACH.
I have taken the roach thus late in this series of papers because it is an important fish to the angler, and deserves a chapter to itself, and because the heaviest and best roach are caught during the winter months, The rank weeds, with which so many of our English ponds and rivers are overgrown, rot away towards the latter end of October, and are carried off by the stream, and the water consequently becomes cleared for the roach-fisher. Roach bite well throughout the summer and autumn mouths, but afford the greatest amount of sport from October until the end of January.
In classing fresh-water fish, the place of honour must be given to those taken with the fly—for example, the salmon, salmon-trout, trout, and grayling, In the second rank I place the fish of prey, viz., the jack and perch; and in the third, all the bottom feeders, such as the roach, dace, carp, barbel, bream, gudgeon, and others, Foremost under this head stands the roach, which is the most important of all to the bottom-fisher, the barbel excepted. Of these two river-fish, I should give the preference to the roach, since it bites pretty freely, during the whole year (exclusive of its spawning months), whereas the barbel is exceedingly capricious, and will bite only at certain times and in certain places. The roach is the favourite fish of nearly all Thames anglers.
Roach are found in great abundance in the Thames, Lea, Trent, Colne, and in all English rivers; also in ponds and even broad ditches, and in fact, in almost all fresh waters. Like most other fresh-water fish, however, they thrive post where there is a running stream, and