Page:Yeast. A Problem - Kingsley (1851).djvu/69

 'When the Lord shows a man a thing, he can't well help seeing it,' answered Tregarva, in his usual staid tone.

There was a pause. The keeper looked at him with a glance, before which Lancelot's eyes fell.

'Hell is paved with hearsays, sir, and as all this talk of mine is hearsay, if you are in earnest, sir, go and see for yourself. I know you have a kind heart, and they tell me you are a great scholar, which would to God I was! so you ought not to condescend to take my word for anything which you can look into yourself;' with which sound piece of common-sense Tregarva returned busily to his eel-lines.

'Hand me the rod and can, and help me out along the buck-stage,' said Lancelot; 'I must have some more talk with you, my fine fellow.'

'Amen,' answered Tregarva, as he assisted our lame hero along a huge beam which stretched out into the pool; and having settled him there, returned mechanically to his work, humming & Wesleyan hymn-tune.

Lancelot sat and tried to catch perch, but Tregarva's words haunted him. He lighted his cigar, and tried to think earnestly over the matter, but he had got into the wrong place for thinking. All his thoughts, all his sympathies, were drowned in the rush and the whirl of the water. He forgot everything else in the mere animal enjoyment of sight and sound. Like many young men at his crisis of life, he had given himself up to the mere contemplation of Nature till he had become her slave; and now a