Barry Pain

“ The aged angler's principal opponent was the dyspeptic clergyman whom William and Isobel had dignified by the name of the Reverend Father. But to-night the Reverend Father had gone to bed early in a state of harassing doubt as to whether it had been wise of him to take a second helping of ice pudding. Consequently, the aged angler had room to spread himself, and he talked on the subject of women.
"You will never find in any woman," he cried dictatorially, "a really perfect sense of truth and justice. Even the best of them have not got it. ”

“ Long after Isobel had gone to bed, William sat in the hotel smoking-room, consuming many cigarettes and listening to the converse of an aged angler.
Now, the angler was a cynic, which is not wonderful. While the angler is not catching fish—that is, for by far the greater part of the time that he is trying to catch them—he has leisure for meditation, and his meditations are likely to take a bitter tone. But I do not know why all cynics are extremely liable to say things about women ”

“ But will the rest of the people in the hotel believe it, or will they believe we did it on purpose? It's horrible! It's compromising!"
"We've been engaged a year. We are to be married next month."
"That doesn't stop people's tongues."
"There are lots of ways of stopping people's tongues," said William darkly.
By this time Isobel had quite justified herself in her own mind, and believed that she had a legitimate cause for grievance.
"It's really rather too bad," she said. "Naturally, I leave you to manage everything. One always leaves it to the man. ”

“ The entire circuit of the island could be made in twenty minutes, and they had in all probability many vacant hours before them. But there is a joy in saving time even when it is a very little time and you have no particular use for it. Old gentlemen of an obese habit will run to catch a train on the Underground when there is another in three minutes, and then there are inquests.
So William and Isobel encircled the island. But they found no trace whatever of their boat. Isobel said she had been quite sure from the start that that would never do. ”

“ Decidedly fatigue, hunger, and disappointment were doing deadly work with Isobel's temper.
II.
"Luckily," said William, as he unscrewed the stopper of the bottle, "When one goes on a tea-picnic, one always takes far too much milk. That milk will be very useful now. Milk is a food, you know; one doesn't starve when one has milk." ”

“ Then you bring me to this horrible place, and then you go and lose the boat. And you don't seem to have the faintest idea what to do to get us away again. An emergency like this is a test, and we really don't come out of it very well. It destroys one's confidence. One doesn't feel that one can depend on you to get one through. You can only just stand there and talk."
This was severe on the island. It had been a "fragment of pure, sequestered Nature"; it was now a "horrible place." It was severe on William, too; for, after all, it was Isobel, and not he, who had lost the boat ”

“ They know that we took the tea-basket and a rug." He had been carrying these, and he now put them down. "And that's all they know. We might be up one of the many noble mountains that give this desolate country its attraction for the tourist. We might be over at the ruined abbey. The lake is three miles away from the hotel, and may never occur to them at all. About half-past eight or nine they will begin search-partying, but they won't have the faintest idea where to search. If we had hired the boat, the man who let it could have been depended upon to rescue us. ”

“ The hotel dinner was over, but the intelligent Swiss, susceptible to the beauty of Isobel and the long purse of her father, did wonders. They dined well, under the admiring supervision of Isobel's family. The Swiss produced with an air of mystery a very special bottle. "No," he said to William, "zat is not on ze vine list. It is not filth, zat. ”

“ They'd have been here by this time. You said yourself we shouldn't get off before to-morrow, and I don't for a moment suppose we shall get off then. It gets frightfully cold at night, too. Never mind; it can't be helped. ”