"Yes," said Marco, "I see him. Now he's turning away a little. Let me put my line in, too."
Marco extended his pole and dropped his hook gently into the water. He let it down until it was near the perch. The poor fish, after loitering about a minute, gradually approached Marco's hook and bit at it.
Jeremiah, seeing that he was in danger of losing his fish, now called out to Marco to take his line out. "It is not fair," said he, "for you to come and take my fish, just as he was going to bite at my hook. Go away."
But it was too late. As Jeremiah was saying these words, the fish bit, and Marco, drawing up the line, found the fish upon the end of it. As the line came in, however, Jeremiah reached out his hand to seize the fish, and Marco, to prevent him, dropped the pole and endeavored to seize it too.
"Let go my fish," said Jeremiah.
"Let alone my line," said Marco.
Neither would let go. A struggle ensued, and Marco and Jeremiah, in the midst of it, fell off into the water. The water was not very deep, and they soon clambered up upon the log again, but the fish, which had been pulled off the line in the contention, fell into the water, and swam swiftly away into the deep and dark parts of the water, and was seen no more. He was saved by the quarrels of his enemies.
Marco, who was not so much accustomed to a wetting as Jeremiah was, became very angry, and immediately set off to go home to the tavern. Jeremiah coolly resumed his position on the log, and went to fishing again, paying no heed to Marco's expressions of resentment.
Marco walked along, very uncomfortable both in body and mind. His clothes were wet and muddy, and the water in his shoes made a chuckling sound at every step, until he stopped and took his shoes off, and poured the water out. It was nearly sunset when he reached the tavern. He found Forester better. He had left his bed, and had come down into the parlor. He was reclining on the sofa, reading a book, when Marco came in.
Marco advanced towards him, and began to make bitter complaints against Jeremiah. In giving an account of the affair, he omitted all that part of the transaction which made against himself. He said nothing, for instance, about his coming to put his line in where Jeremiah was fishing, and while a fish was actually near Jeremiah's hook, but only said that he caught a fish, and that Jeremiah came and took it away.
"But what claim had Jeremiah to the fish?" asked Forester.
"He had no claim at all," said Marco.
"You mean, he had no right at all," said Forester.
"Yes," said Marco.
"He had a claim, certainly," rejoined Forester; "that is, he claimed the fish. He pretended that it was his. Now, on what was this claim or pretence founded?"
"I don't know," said Marco, "I am sure. I only know he had no right to it, for I caught the fish myself, and he was going to take it away."
Forester paused a moment, and then resumed:
"I don't think that you have given me a full and fair account of the transaction; for I cannot believe that Jeremiah would have come and taken away the fish without any pretext whatever. You must have omitted some important part of the account, I think."
Marco then told Forester that Jeremiah said that the fish was just going to bite at his hook; and, after several other questions from Forester, he gradually acknowledged the whole truth. Still, he maintained that it was his fish. He had a right to put in his line, he said, wherever he pleased, whether another boy was fishing or not; the fish belonged to the one who caught him; and, before he was caught, he did not belong to anybody. It was absurd, he maintained, to suppose that the fish became Jeremiah's, just because he was swimming near his hook.
"Sometimes one can judge better of a case," said Forester, "by reversing the condition of the parties. Suppose that you had been fishing, and a large fish had come swimming about your hook, and that Jeremiah had then come to put his hook in at the same place, should you have thought it right?"
"Why, I don't know," said Marco.
"It is doubtful. Now, it is an excellent rule," continued Forester, "in all questions of right between ourselves and other persons, for us to give them the benefit of the doubt."
"What does that mean?" asked Marco.
"Why, if a man is tried in a court for any crime," replied Forester, "if it is clearly proved that he is innocent, of course he goes free. If it is clearly proved that he is guilty, he is convicted. But if neither the one nor the other can be proved, that is, if it is doubtful whether he is innocent or guilty, they give him the benefit of the doubt, as they term it, and let him go free."
"I should think that, when it is doubtful," said Marco, "they ought to send him back to prison again till they can find out certainly."
"No," said Forester, "the jury are directed to acquit him, unless it is positively proved that he is guilty. So that, if they think it is doubtful, they give him the benefit of the doubt, and let him go free. Now, in all questions of property between ourselves and others, we should all be willing to give to others the benefit of the doubt, and then the disputes would be very easily settled, or rather, disputes would never arise. In this case, for instance, it is doubtful whether you had a right to come and interfere while the fish was near his hook; it is doubtful whether he did or did not have a sort of right to try to catch the fish, without your interfering; and you ought to have been willing to have given him the benefit of the doubt, and so have staid away, or have given up the fish to him after you had caught it."
"But I don't see," said Marco, "why he should not have been willing to have given me the benefit of the doubt, as well as I to have given it to him."
"Certainly," said Forester; "Jeremiah ought to have considered that there was a doubt whether he was entitled to the fish or not, and to have been willing to have given you the benefit of the doubt; and so have let you kept the fish. Each, in such a case, ought to be willing to give up to the other."
"And then which of us should have it?" asked Marco.
"Why, it generally happens," said Forester, in reply, "that only one of the parties adopts this principle, and so he yields to the other; but if both adopt it, then there is sometimes a little discussion, each insisting on giving up to the other. But such a dispute is a friendly dispute, not a hostile one, and it is very easily settled."
"A friendly dispute!" exclaimed Marco; "I never heard of such a thing."
"Yes," said Forester. "Suppose, for instance, that, when you had caught your fish, you had said, 'There, Jeremiah, that fish is yours; he was coming up to your hook, and would have bitten at it if I had not put my line in;' and, then, if Jeremiah had said, 'No, it is not mine; it is yours, for you caught it with your hook;' this would have been a friendly dispute. It would have been very easily settled."
"I am sorry that I left my pole down at the river," said Marco. "I cut a most excellent pole in the woods, on my way down, and I left it there across the log. I mean to go down and get it early in the morning."
"No," said Forester; "we must be on our way up the river early to-morrow morning."
"How shall we go?" asked Marco.
"I have engaged a wagon here to take us to Bath, and there we shall find a stage."
Accordingly, early the next morning, Forester and Marco got into a wagon to go up the river to Bath, which is the first town of any considerable consequence which you meet in ascending the Kennebec river. Marco and Forester sat on the seat of the wagon, and a boy, who was going with them for the purpose of bringing the wagon back, sat behind, on a box, which had been put in to make a seat for him.
Marco said that he was very sorry that he had not time to go and get his fishing-pole.
"It would not do any good," said Forester, "for you could not carry it."
"Why, yes," said Marco, "we might put it on the bottom of the wagon, and let the end run out behind. It is pretty long."