Beneath its
shallow verge, among the water-weeds, there were further traces, as
yet unobliterated by the sluggish current, which was there almost at
a standstill. Silas Foster thrust his face down close to these
footsteps, and picked up a shoe that had escaped my observation,
being half imbedded in the mud.
"There's a kid shoe that never was made on a Yankee last," observed
he. "I know enough of shoemaker's craft to tell that. French
manufacture; and see what a high instep! and how evenly she trod in
it! There never was a woman that stept handsomer in her shoes than
Zenobia did. Here," he added, addressing Hollingsworth, "would you
like to keep the shoe?"
Hollingsworth started back.
"Give it to me, Foster," said I.
I dabbled it in the water, to rinse off the mud, and have kept it
ever since. Not far from this spot lay an old, leaky punt, drawn up
on the oozy river-side, and generally half full of water. It served
the angler to go in quest of pickerel, or the sportsman to pick up
his wild ducks. Setting this crazy bark afloat, I seated myself in
the stern with the paddle, while Hollingsworth sat in the bows with
the hooked pole, and Silas Foster amidships with a hay-rake.
"It puts me in mind of my young days," remarked Silas, "when I used
to steal out of bed to go bobbing for hornpouts and eels. Heigh-ho!--
well, life and death together make sad work for us all! Then I was
a boy, bobbing for fish; and now I am getting to be an old fellow,
and here I be, groping for a dead body! I tell you what, lads; if I
thought anything had really happened to Zenobia, I should feel kind
o' sorrowful.
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