ned with those artificial and other flies, which infest Harris
tweed, he crept along among the hazel bushes and thorn-trees, perfectly
happy. Like an old spaniel, who has once gloried in the fetching of
hares, rabbits, and all manner of fowl, and is now glad if you will but
throw a stick for him, so one, who had been a famous fisher before the
Lord, who had harried the waters of Scotland and Norway, Florida and
Iceland, now pursued trout no bigger than sardines. The glamour of a
thousand memories hallowed the hours he thus spent by that brown water.
He fished unhasting, religious, like some good Catholic adding one
more to the row of beads already told, as though he would fish himself,
gravely, without complaint, into the other world. With each fish caught
he experienced a solemn satisfaction.

Though he would have liked Barbara with him that morning, he had only
looked at her once after breakfast in such a way that she could not see
him, and with a dry smile gone off by himself. Down by the stream it was
dappled, both cool and warm, windless; the trees met over the river, and
there were many stones, forming little basins which held up the ripple,
so that the casting of a fly required much cunning. This long dingle ran
for miles through the foot-growth of folding hills. It was beloved of
jays; but of human beings there were none, except a chicken-farmer's
widow, who lived in a house thatched almost to the ground, and made her
livelihood by directing tourists, with such cunning that they soon came
back to her for tea.

It was while throwing a rather longer line than usual to reach a little
dark piece of crisp water that Lord Dennis heard the swishing and
crackling of someone advancing at full speed. He frowned slightly,
feeling for the nerves of his fishes, whom he did not wish startled. The
invader was Miltoun, hot, pale, dishevelled, with a queer, hunted look
on his face. He stopped on seeing his great-uncle, and instantly assumed
the mask of his smile.

Lord Dennis was not the man to see what was not intended for him, and he
merely said:

"Well, Eustace!" as he might have spoken, meeting his nephew in the hall
of one of his London Clubs.

Miltoun, no less polite, murmured:

"Hope I haven't lost you anything."

Lord Dennis shook his head, and laying his rod on the bank, said:

"Sit down and have a chat, old fellow. You don't fish, I think?"

He had not, in the least, missed the suffering behind Miltoun's mask