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Updated: May 22, 2025
As I walked and thought, the dreadful picture of a totally eclipsed future arose before my mind. The moral of Barbel sank deep into my heart. When I reached home I told my wife the story of my friend Barbel. She listened with a sad and eager interest. "I am afraid," she said, "if our fortunes do not quickly mend, that we shall have to buy two little grindstones.
The child clapped her hands in delight and then ran to Barbara to exclaim once more: "Aunt Barbel, did you hear? He's coming!" "With the blue feather," replied the widow. "And he has curls, curls as long as Assendelft's little Clara. May I go with you to see Cousin Henrica?" "Afterwards, perhaps," replied Maria. "Go now, children, get the flowers and separate them carefully from the leaves.
Game, pheasants, fowls, partridges, larks, hares, dotterels, wild ducks, teal, snipes, widgeon, grouse. Fish. Dories, smelts, pike, perch, holibets, brills, carp, salmon trout, barbel, gudgeons, tench, shellfish. Vegetables. As in January, French beans, runners, windsor beans. Fruit. Peaches, pears, figs, bullace, grapes, apples, medlars, damsons, filberts, nuts, walnuts, quinces, services.
They thought that the whole swarm of people whom they had seen in the bright daylight were still moving around them; they were certain they still saw the same forms that had first caught their attention. A pretty Barbel, with spotted skin, and an enviably round back, declared that the "human fry" were still there. "I can see a well set-up human figure quite well," said the Barbel.
As I walked and thought, the dreadful picture of a totally eclipsed future arose before my mind. The moral of Barbel sank deep into my heart. When I reached home I told my wife the story of my friend Barbel. She listened with a sad and eager interest. "I am afraid," she said, "if our fortunes do not quickly mend, that we shall have to buy two little grindstones.
As everybody called the river crossed by the railway the Modder, Modder let it be. Its real name, however, is the Riet, of which the Modder is a tributary flowing from the north-west and joining the main stream well to the east of the line. As a stream the river does not impress the visitor favourably: its waters were yellow and muddy, and the vegetation on its banks was thin and scrappy. There are no respectable fish in either the Modder or the Orange River; even if the fish could see a fly on the top of the liquid mud, they haven't the spirit to rise at it. Some of our officers, it was said, had managed to land a few specimens of a coarse fish like a barbel which haunts these streams, but I should not think any one, even amid the monotony of camp rations, was very keen about eating his catch, for a good many dead Boers had been dragged out of the river. It was, in fact, a rather grisly joke in camp to remark,
"There is nothing better," said Barbel, noticing my glance toward this novel counterpane, "for a bed-covering than newspapers; they keep you as warm as a blanket, and are much lighter. I used to use `Tribunes, but they rattled too much." The only part of the room which was well lighted was one end near the solitary window. Here, upon a table with a spliced leg, stood a little grindstone.
I had lost sight of Barbel for some years, and I had supposed him still floating on the sun-sparkling stream of prosperity where I had last seen him. It was a great shock to me to find him in such a condition of poverty and squalor, and to see a man who had originated the "Conundrum of the Anvil" reduced to the soul-depressing occupation of grinding pin-points.
Well do I remember yes, as well as if it had been yesterday going out with him to fish for barbel, and joining him over-night to go in search of bait. I found him crouched by his fire, eating potatoes out of the same plate with his dog. This frugal meal over, he took up a small lantern, a large box, and a long spade, and beckoned me to follow him.
Here, O idle water-wanderer, let your boat glide with the scarcely moving current, and gaze upon the leafy groves of the sub-aqueous wilderness lit up by the rays of the sun, and watch the fish moving singly or in shoals at various depths the bearded barbel, the spotted trout, the shimmering bream, and the bronzen tench.
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