Prince Fortunatus by William Black (good books for 8th graders .TXT) 📕

him. However, there's no use fretting over lost fish. We did our best, Robert, didn't we?"

"Indeed you could not hef done better, Miss Honnor," said the old gillie. "There wass no mistake that you made at ahl."

"Very well," said she, cheerfully; and she looked in a kindly way towards the old man. "I did everything right? and as for you, no one will tell me that the best gillie in Ross-shire did anything wrong; so we have nothing to reproach ourselves with, Robert, have we?"

"But it is such a dreadful misfortune!" exclaimed Lionel, who could hardly understand this equanimity. "Another couple of seconds, and you must have had him."

"Well, now, Robert," said she, briskly, "shall we go up and try the tail of the Long Pool? Or go down to the Stones?"

"We'll chist go up to the tail of the Long Pool, Miss Honnor," said he; and he took the rod from her, picked up her waterproof, and set out; while Lionel, without waiting for any further invitation, accompanied her.

And as they walked along, picking their way among boulders and bracken and heather, he was asking her whether the heart-breaking accidents and bitter disappointments of salmon-fishing were not greater than its rewards; as to which she lightly made answer:

"You must come and try. None of the gentlemen here are very eager anglers; I suppose they get enough of salmon-fishing in the spring. Now if you care about it at all, one rod is always enough for two people, and we could arrange it this way--that you should take the pools where wading is necessary. They'll get a pair of waders for you at the lodge. At present old Robert does all the wading that is wanted; but of course I don't care much about playing a fish that has been hooked by somebody else. Now, you would take the wading pools."

"Oh, thank you," said he, "but I'm afraid I should show myself such a duffer. I used to be a pretty fair trout-fisher when I was a lad," he went on to say; and then it suddenly occurred to him that the offer of her companionship ought not to be received in this hesitating fashion. "But I shall be delighted to try my hand, if you will let me; and of course you must see that I don't disturb the best pools."

So they passed up through the narrow gorge, where the heavy volume of water was dashing down in tawny masses between the rocks, and got into the open country again, where the strath broadened out in a wide expanse of moorland. Here the river ran smooth between low banks, bordered now and again by a fringe of birch, and there was a greater quiet prevailing, the farther and farther they got away from the tumbling torrents below. But when they reached the Long Pool no fishing was possible; the afternoon sun struck full on the calm surface of the water; there was not a breath of wind to stir the smooth-mirrored blue and white; they could do nothing but choose out a heathery knoll on the bank, and sit down and wait patiently for a passing cloud.

"I suppose," said she, clasping her fingers together in her lap--"I suppose you are all eagerness about to-morrow morning?"

"Oh, I am not going shooting to-morrow," said he.

"What!" she exclaimed. "To be on a grouse-moor on the Twelfth, and not go out?"

"It is because it is the Twelfth; I don't want to spoil sport," said he, modestly. "And I don't want to make a fool of myself either. If I could shoot well enough, and if there were a place for me, I should be glad to go out with them; but my shooting is, like my fishing, a relic of boyhood's days; and I should not like to make an exhibition of myself before a lot of crack shots."

"That is only false pride", said she, in her curiously direct, straightforward way. "Why should you be ashamed to admit that there are certain things you can't do as well as you can do certain other things? There is no particular virtue in having been brought up to the use of a gun or rod. Take your own case. You are at home on the stage. There you know everything--you are the master, the proficient. But take the crack shots and put them on the stage, and ask them to do the simplest thing--then it is their turn to be helpless, not to say ridiculous."

"Perhaps," said he, rather tentatively, "you mean that we should all of us keep to our own walks in life?"

"I'm sure I don't mean anything of the kind," said she, with much frankness. "I only mean that if you are not a first-rate shot, you need not be ashamed of it; you should remember there are other things you can do well. And really you must go out to-morrow morning. My brother was talking about it at breakfast; and I believe the proposal is that you go with him and Captain Waveney. If any little mistake is made, Captain Waveney is the man to retrieve it--at least so I've heard them say."

"At all events," said he, "if I go with them at all, it will not be under false pretences. I shall warn them, to begin with, that I am a bad shot; then I can't be found out. And they must put me in a position where I can't do much harm."

"I dare say you shoot very well," she said, with a smile. "Gentlemen always talk like that on the evening before the Twelfth, if they have come to a strange moor."

But now she had risen again, for a breath of wind was stirring along the strath, while some higher air-currents were slowly bringing certain fleecy clouds across from the west. As soon as the welcome shade had stolen over the river, she began to cast; and on this smooth water he could see more clearly what an excellent line this was that she sent out. Not a long line--perhaps twenty-three or twenty-four yards--but thrown most admirably, the fly lighting on the surface like a snowflake. Moreover, he was now a little bit behind her, so that he could with impunity regard the appearance of this newly-found companion--her lithe and agile form, the proud set of her neck and head, the beautiful close masses of her curly, golden-brown hair, and the fine contour of her sun-tanned cheek. Then the vigorous exercise in which she was engaged revealed all the suppleness and harmonious proportions of her figure; for here was no pretty wrist-work of trout-fishing, but the wielding of a double-handed salmon-rod; and she had taught herself the gillies' method of casting--that is to say, she made the backward cast by throwing both arms right up in the air, so that, as she paused to let the line straighten out behind, her one hand was on a level with her forehead, and the other more than a foot above that. Lionel thought that before he tried casting in the presence of Miss Honnor Cunyngham, he should like to get a few quiet lessons from old Robert.

However, all this expenditure of skill proved to be of no avail. She could not move a fin; nor had Robert any better luck, when, they having come to a shallow reach, she allowed the old man, who was encased in waders, to get into the water and fish along the opposite bank. When he came ashore again, his young mistress said,

"Dame Fortune hasn't forgiven us for letting that first one go." And old Robert, who had probably never heard of Dame Fortune (or may have considered the phrase a polite and young-lady-like form of swearing), merely made answer,

"Ay, Miss Honnor, we'll go and try the Small Pool, now."

The Small Pool lies between the Long Pool and the Rock Pool; it is a circular, deep, black hole, in which the waters collect before dashing and roaring down between the great gray boulders; and to fish it you must get out on certain knife-like ledges that seem to offer anything but a secure foothold. However, Miss Honnor did not think twice about it; and, indeed, as she made her way out on those narrow slips of rock, Lionel perceived that her boots, which were laced in front like men's boots, if they were small enough as regarded that portion covering the foot, were provided with most sensibly wide soles, which, again were studded with nails. And there, balancing herself as best she might, she got out a short line, and began industriously to cover every inch of the surging and whirling water. A most likely-looking place, Lionel thought to himself, as he sat and looked on. But here also they were doomed to disappointment. It is true she hooked a small sea-trout--and was heartily glad when it shook itself free, thereby saving her time and trouble. All the rest of her labor was expended for nothing; so finally she had to reel up and make her way ashore, where she surrendered her rod to the old gillie.

Then they passed down through the narrow defile again and came in view of the wide path--now all saffron-tinted in the evening sunlight--with the lodge and its straggling dependencies in the midst of the plain. Perhaps it was this sight of the house that recalled to her what they had been talking of some time before; for, as they walked along the river-bank, she was again urging him to go out on the following morning; and not only that, but she declared he must have one or two days' deer-stalking while he was in the North. If he missed, then he missed; why should he care what foresters and gillies thought of him? Of course he was very grateful to her for all her kind patronage; but he could not help thinking it rather odd to find a woman lending courage to a man--counselling him to be independent and to have no fear of ridicule.

"I recollect," he said to her, "once hearing Lord Rockminster say that until a man has gone deer-stalking he can have no idea what extremes of misery a human being is capable of enduring."

"Lord Rockminster is incurably lazy," she said. "I think if you found yourself 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