his motley. Quite close to him a dead branch thrust upwards from the
water, and the river swirled in oily play of wrinkles and dimples beyond
it. Here, with some approach to his old skill, the angler presently cast
a small brown moth. It fell lightly and neatly, cocked for a second,
then turned helplessly over, wrecked in the sudden eddy as a natural
insect had been. A fearless rise followed, and in less than half a
minute a small trout was in the angler's net. John Grimbal landed this
little fish carefully and regarded it with huge satisfaction before
returning it to the river. Then, having accomplished the task set by
sudden desire,--to catch a Teign trout again, feel it, smell it, see
the ebony and crimson, the silver belly warming to gold on its sides and
darkening to brown and olive above,--having by this act renewed
sensations that had slept for fifteen years, he put up his rod and
returned to his temporary quarters at the dwelling of Mrs. Blanchard.

His brother was waiting in the little garden to welcome him. Martin
walked up and down, smelled the flowers, and gazed with sober delight
upon the surrounding scene. Already sunset fires had waned; but the high
top of the fir that crowned Rushford Bridge still glowed with a great
light on its red bark; an uprising Whiddon, where it lay afar off under
the crown of Cranbrook, likewise shone out above the shadowed valley.

Martin Grimbal approached his brother and laid his hand upon the
fisherman's arm. He stood the smaller in stature, though of strong
build. His clean-shaved face had burned much darker than John's; he was
indeed coffee-brown and might have been mistaken for an Indian but for
his eyes of ordinary slate-grey. Without any pretension to good looks,
Martin Grimbal displayed what was better--an expression of such frank
benignity and goodness that his kind trusted him and relied upon him by
intuition. Honest and true to the verge of quixotism was this man in all
dealings with his fellows, yet he proved a faulty student of character.
First he was in a measure blinded by his own amiable qualities to acute
knowledge of human nature; secondly, he was drawn away from humanity
rather than not, for no cynic reason, but by the character of his
personal predilections and pursuits.

"I've seen father's grave, John," were his first words to his brother.
"It's beside the mother's, but that old stone he put up to her must be
moved and--"

"All right, all right, old cha