‘What hat had he on?’

So she told him.

‘And was his name writ in it, or how was it marked?’

‘Two big letters—­a C and an N.’

‘I see; and do you remember any other mark you’d know it by?’

’Well, yes; I stitched the lining only last month, with red silk, and that’s how I remember the letters.’

‘I know; and are you sure it was that hat he had on?’

‘Certain sure—­why, there’s all the rest;’ and she conned them over, as they hung on their pegs on the rack before them.

’Now, don’t let the mistress be downhearted—­keep her up, Moggy, do you mind.  I told her the master was with Lord Castlemallard since yesterday evening, on business, and don’t you say anything else; keep her quiet, do ye mind, and humour her.’

And away went Toole, at a swift pace, to the town again, and entered the barrack, and asked to see the adjutant, and then to look at the hat the corporal had fished up by ‘Bloody Bridge;’ and, by Jupiter! his heart gave a couple of great bounces, and he felt himself grow pale—­they were the identical capitals, C N, and the clumsy red silk stitching in the lining.

Toole was off forthwith, and had a fellow dragging the river before three-quarters of an hour.

Dr. Walsingham, returning from an early ride to Island Bridge, saw this artist at work, with his ropes and great hooks, at the other side of the river; and being a man of enquiring mind, and never having witnessed the process before, he cried out to him, after some moments lost in conjecture—­

‘My good man, what are you fishing for?’

‘A land-agent,’ answered Isaac Walton.

‘A land-agent?’ repeated the rector, misdoubting his ears.

The saturnine angler made no answer.

‘And has a gentleman been drowned here?’ he persisted.

The man only looked at him across the stream, and nodded.

‘Eh! and his name, pray?’

‘Old Nutter, of the Mills,’ he replied.

The rector made a woeful ejaculation, and stared at the careless operator, who had a pipe in his mouth the while, which made him averse from conversation.  He would have liked to ask him more questions, but he was near the village, and refrained himself; and he met Toole at the corner of the bridge who, leaning on the shoulder of the rector’s horse, gave him the sad story in full.

CHAPTER LII.

CONCERNING A ROULEAU OF GUINEAS AND THE CRACK OF A PISTOL.

Dangerfield went up the river that morning with his rod and net, and his piscatory fidus Achates, Irons, at his elbow.  It was a nice gray sky, but the clerk was unusually silent even for him; and the sardonic piscator appeared inscrutably amused as he looked steadily upon the running waters.  Once or twice the spectacles turned full upon the clerk, over Dangerfield’s shoulder, with a cynical light, as if he were on the point of making one of his ironical jokes; but he turned back again with a little whisk, the jest untold, whatever it was, to the ripple and the fly, and the coy gray troutlings.