ourself riding along this strath some night about eight or nine
o'clock, knowing that away up among the hills you had left a stag of ten
or twelve points to be sent for and brought down the next morning--then
I think you wouldn't be reflecting on the discomforts you had gone
through, or, if you did, it would be with pride. Why," said she, "you
surely didn't come to the Highlands to play at private theatricals?"

"I get enough of the theatre in the South," he said, "as you may well
imagine."

But here was a bend of the river sheltered from the weltering sun by a
steep and wooded hill; and Miss Cunyngham, at old Robert's suggestion,
began work again. It was really most interesting to watch this graceful
casting; Lionel, sitting down on the heather and smoking a cigarette,
seemed to want no other occupation; he forgot what the object of
throwing a fly was, the throwing of the fly seemed to be enough in
itself. He had grown to think that all these oily sweeps of brown water,
touched here and there by dark, olive-green reflections, were useful
only as showing where the fly dropped; there was no fish watching the
slow jerking of the "Bishop" across the current; the one salmon that
haunted the Rock Pool had put in an appearance and gone away long ago.
But suddenly there was a short, sharp scream of the reel; then silence.

"What is it, Robert?" she said--apparently holding on to something.
"Another sea-trout?"

"Oh, no, Miss Honnor, I am not thinking that--"

The words were hardly out of his mouth when it became abundantly clear
that the unknown creature in the deeps had not the least intention of
concealing his identity. A sudden rush down-stream, followed by a wild
splashing and thrashing on the surface, was only the first of a series
of performances that left Miss Honnor not one single moment of
breathing-space. Either she was following him rapidly down the river, or
following him up again, or reeling in swiftly as he came sailing towards
her, or again she could only stand in breathless suspense as he flung
himself into the air and then beat and churned the water, shaking the
line this way and that.

"Oh, you wicked little wretch!" she cried, at a particularly vicious
flourish out of the water; but this was the kind of fish she liked; this
was a fish that fought fair--a gentlemanly fish, without the thought of
a sulk in him--a very Prince Rupert even among grilse; this was no
malevolent, underhand, deep-boring tugger.