The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 252: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE FISHERS OF MEN 235 was the obscurity which prevailed, and which had now well-nigh absorbed the moonlight altogether. But still there was a certain hazy glimmering upon the water, and Jocelyn closely watched the preparations which the men made for their fishing experiments. They had two kinds of tackle. One was a net made in the shape of a bag, and fastened to a large hoop, to which were attached four cords, Joining together at the length of about a dozen feet, and at this point of junction they were united to one good stout rope. The other sort of tackle consisted of a row of grappling-irons fas- tened to a bar of wood about four feet long, and with this instrument the bottom of the lake might be, as it were, raked, so as to catch hold of anything that had even become embedded in the mud or clay. With these two distinct apparatus three or four fresh hauls were now made, the men either wading out to their middle in the water, or else climbing along the cross-beams on the side of the jetty, so as to be enabled to fling their tackle as far away from the land as possible, and thus drag the whole of the little bay formed by the wooden pier and the indented shore. Little was said during the half-hour at first expended in this manner, but presently an exclamation from Kobolt, as he raised the net above described, drew the notice of his comrades and Jocelyn toward him. ‘““ Here is something very much like it,’’ he said, as he proceeded to examine the net, and from amidst a quantity of weeds, stones, and mire he dragged forth a shapeless object which he at once pronounced to be the corpse of an infant wrapped up in flannel. One of the men now produced a piece of canvas, which made a fitting envelope for the corpse, to secure our hero’s hand against too close a contact with the loathsome object. He now paid Kobolt the remaining twenty louis, according to promise, and took his departure with his strange, we might almost say dreadful, burden. Uninterruptedly and free from molestation did our hero retrace his way to Maravelli’s house, the exact position of which with regard to the lake he had not much difficulty in remembering, having been led thither direct from the water’s edge (although considerably lower down) by Mrs. Roberts on the preceding night. | CORNICLOOL <S) (CO) im