"Yes, Jerry," repeated Mr. Cruncher, sitting
down to tea. "Ah! It is yes, Jerry. That's
about it. You may say yes, Jerry."

Mr. Cruncher had no particular meaning in
these sulky corroborations, but made use of them,
as people not unfrequently do, to express general
ironical dissatisfaction.

"You and your yes, Jerry," said Mr. Cruncher,
taking a bite out of his bread and butter, and seeming
to help it down with a large invisible oyster
out of his saucer. "Ah! I think so. I believe
you."

"You are going out to-night?" asked his
decent wife, when he took another bite.

"Yes, I am."

"May I go with you, father?" asked his son,
briskly.

"No, you mayn't. I'm a going—as your
mother knows—a fishing. That's where I'm going
to. Going a fishing."

"Your fishing-rod gets rayther rusty; don't it,
father?"

"Never you mind."

"Shall you bring any fish home, father?"

"If I don't, you'll have short commons
tomorrow," returned that gentleman, shaking his
head; "that's questions enough for you; I an't
a going out, till you've been long a-bed."

He devoted himself during the remainder
of the evening to keeping a most vigilant
watch on Mrs. Cruncher, and sullenly holding
her in conversation that she might be
prevented from meditating any petitions to his
disadvantage. With this view, he urged his
son to hold her in conversation also, and led the
unfortunate woman a hard life by dwelling on
any causes of complaint he could bring against
her, rather than he would leave her for a
moment to her own reflections. The devoutest
person could have rendered no greater homage
to the efficacy of an honest prayer than he did in
this distrust of his wife. It was as if a professed
unbeliever in ghosts should be frightened by a
ghost story.

"And mind you!" said Mr. Cruncher. "No
games to-morrow! If I, as a honest tradesman,
succeed in providing a jinte of meat or two,
none of your not touching of it, and sticking to
bread. If I, as a honest tradesman, am able to
provide a little beer, none of your declaring on
water. When you go to Rome, do as Rome
does. Rome will be a ugly customer to you, if
you don't. I'm your Rome, you know."

Then he began grumbling again:

"With your flying into the face of your own
wittles and drink! I don't know how scarce
you mayn't make the wittles and drink here, by
your flopping tricks and your unfeeling
conduct. Look at your boy: he is your'n ain't
he? He's as thin as a lath. Do you call yourself
a mother, and not know that a mother's first
duty is to blow her boy out?"

This touched Young Jerry on a tender place;
who adjured his mother to perform her first
duty, and, whatever else she did or neglected,
above all things to lay especial stress on the
discharge of that maternal function so affectingly
and delicately indicated by his other
parent.

Thus the evening wore away with the Cruncher
family, until Young Jerry was ordered to bed,
and his mother, laid under similar injunctions,
obeyed them. Mr. Cruncher beguiled the earlier
watches of the night with solitary pipes, and did
not start upon his excursion until nearly one
o'clock. Towards that small and ghostly hour,
he rose up from his chair, took a key out of his
pocket, opened a locked cupboard, and brought
forth a sack, a crowbar ot convenient size, a
rope and chain, and other fishing-tackle of that
nature. Disposing these articles about him in a
skilful manner, he bestowed a parting defiance
on Mrs. Cruncher, extinguished the light, and
went out.

Young Jerry, who had only made a feint of
undressing when he went to bed, was not long
after his father. Under cover of the darkness
he followed out of the room, followed down the
stairs, followed down the court, followed out
into the streets. He was in no uneasiness
concerning his getting into the house again, for it
was full of lodgers, and the door stood ajar
all night.

Impelled by a laudable ambition to study the
art and mystery of his father's honest calling,
Young Jerry, keeping as close to house-fronts,
walls, and doorways, as his eyes were close to
one another, held his honoured parent in view.
The honoured parent steering Northward, had
not gone far, when he was joined by another
disciple of Izaak Walton, and the two trudged,
on together.

Within half an hour from the first starting,
they were beyond the winking lamps, and the
more than winking watchmen, and were out
upon a lonely road. Another fisherman was picked
up here—and that so silently, that if Young Jerry
had been superstitious, he might have supposed
the second follower of the gentle craft to have,
all of a sudden, split himself into two.

The three went on, and Young Jerry went on,
until the three stopped under a bank overhanging
the road. Upon the top of the bank was a
low brick wall surmounted by an iron railing.
In the shadow of bank and wall, the three turned
out of the road, and up a blind lane, of which
the wall—there, risen to some eight or ten feet
high—formed one side. Crouching down in a
corner, peeping up the lane, the next object that
Young Jerry saw, was the form of his honoured
parent, pretty well defined against a watery and
clouded moon, nimbly scaling an iron gate. He
was soon over, and then the second fisherman
got over, and then the third. They all dropped
softly on the ground within the gate, and lay
there a little—listening perhaps. Then, they
moved away on their hands and knees.

It was now Young Jerry's turn to approach
the gate: which he did, holding his breath.
Crouching down again in a corner there, and
looking in, he made out the three fishermen
creeping through some rank grass; and all the
gravestones in the churchyard—it was a large
churchyard that they were in—looking on like