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"I didn't see the water-rat dressing himself, or the girl with the red shoes," said Sam slowly. "My, what a chap you are, Christopher, to spin a yarn. Wish I could reel it off to mother and the kids like that." He found himself in a few minutes discoursing with Aymer on the variety and history of his family. It was not for some minutes or so that the great subject was approached.
"And how do you like the Water-rat?" asked the Duck, who came paddling up some minutes afterwards. "He has a great many good points, but for my own part I have a mother's feelings, and I can never look at a confirmed bachelor without the tears coming into my eyes." "I am rather afraid that I have annoyed him," answered the Linnet. "The fact is, that I told him a story with a moral."
His dog now emerged from the brushwood gravely approached Kenelm, who with greater gravity regarded him; then, wagging his tail, reposed on his haunches, intent with ear erect on a stir in the neighbouring reeds, evidently considering whether it was caused by a fish or a water-rat.
Otter, pike, perch, heron, kingfisher, owl, moorhen, coot, grebe, diver, wild-duck, swan, teal, dipper, land-rat, and water-rat altogether sixteen creatures are killed in order that one may flourish. Although none of these, even in the south of England except the otter has yet been excluded, the majority of them are so thinned down as to be rarely seen unless carefully sought.
To the rattle and rumble of the labouring stones succeeded thick silence, punctuated with little drops from the stayed wheel. Then some water-bird in the dam fluttered her wings as she slid to her nest, and the plop of a water-rat sounded like the fall of a log in the water. "It is all over it always is all over at just this time. Listen, the Miller is going to bed as usual.
It was the man he had seen in the clutches of the water-rat at Hammersmith, when both were capsized into the river six months ago. This put him on his guard, and he prepared to meet further questions with evasion or defiance. But he would flavour them with substantial facts. It would confuse issues and make it more difficult to convict him of mendacity.
The Inspector examined the gruesome relic with obvious curiosity, turning it over with the tip of his little finger and manifesting considerable repugnance in touching it at all. Smith and I watched him in silence, and, finally, placing the tray again upon the table, he looked up in a puzzled way. "It's something like the skin of a water-rat," he said. Nayland Smith stared at him fixedly.
Or, does he lie, I wonder, somewhere among the long grass of the salt-marsh, that borders our garden, and in perigee tides widens out into a lake. There indeed would be his appropriate country, for there was the happy hunting-ground through which in life he was never tired of roaming, in the inextinguishable hope of mink, and with the occasional certainty of a water-rat.
The water-rat of Europe is smaller, but of similar nature and habits. The muskrat does not hibernate like some rodents, but is pretty active all winter. In December I noticed in my walk where they had made excursions of a few yards to an orchard for frozen apples.
"A water-rat? Now that you come to mention it, I perceive a certain resemblance yes. But" he had been wearing a silk scarf about his throat and now he unwrapped it "did you ever see a water-rat that could make marks like these?" Weymouth started to his feet with some muttered exclamation. "What is this?" he cried. "When did it happen, and how?"
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