Edgar made a large basket with a narrow neck. It would catch fish the same way the pond did, by being easy to enter and difficult to leave—if it worked.
He finished it that evening.
In the morning he went to the tavern dunghill, looking for something he could use as bait. He found the head of a chicken and two decomposing rabbit feet. He put them in the bottom of the basket.
He added a stone for stability, then sank the trap in the pond he had created.
He forced himself to leave it where it was, without checking it, for twenty-four hours.
Next morning, as he was leaving the farmhouse, Eadbald said: “Where are you going?”
“To look at my fish trap.”
“Is that what you were making?”
“I don’t know if it will work.”
“I’m coming to see.”
They all followed him, Eadbald and Erman and Cwenburg with the baby.
Edgar waded into the pond, which was thigh high. He was not sure exactly where he had sunk the trap. He had to bend down and feel around in the mud. It might even have moved in the night.
“You’ve lost it!” Erman jeered.
He could not have lost it; the pond was not big enough. But another time he would mark its location with some kind of buoy, probably a piece of wood tied to the basket by a string long enough to allow the wood to float on the surface.
If there was another time.
At last his hands came in contact with the basketwork.
He sent up a silent prayer.
He found the neck of the trap and upended it so that the entrance was at the top, then he lifted.
It seemed heavy, and he worried that it might somehow have got stuck.
With a heave he pulled it above the surface, water pouring away through the small holes between the woven twigs.
When the water was gone he could see clearly into the trap. It was full of eels.
Eadbald said delightedly: “Would you look at that?”
Cwenburg clapped her hand. “We’re rich!”
“It worked,” Edgar said with profound satisfaction. This haul would allow them to eat well for a week or more.
Eadbald said: “I see a couple of river trout in there, and some smaller fish I can’t identify.”
“The tiddlers will serve as bait next time,” said Edgar.
“Next time? You think you can do this every week?”
Edgar shrugged. “I’m not certain, but I don’t see why not. Every day, even. There are millions of fish in the river.”
“We’ll have more fish than we can eat!”
“Then we’ll sell some and buy meat.”
