full-finned, down-stream. Her reel screamed out, and in a couple of seconds there was a dreadful length of line between her and the fly. But she gained the smooth turf of the bank, and was off like an arrow after him, when, just before matters were desperate, a bend in the rapids brought her nearer to him, and, still running, she reeled hurriedly in. Then – oh, blessed haven! – he reached the deep water at the head of the pool below, and, swimming there in small circles, allowed her to recapture more of her line. Then, still without taking her eyes off the water (for she felt sure that the owner of the voice had run down behind her), she spoke to him again.
“The humour of the situation is that I have only the very lightest tackle,” she said; “for I came out after sea-trout. But luckily my fish doesn’t know that. And would you be so kind as to get my landing-net? I left it on the bank just below the bridge.”
“I saw it and brought it,” said the voice. “But I don’t know what you want it for. He’s a twenty-pounder.”
The voice was a very pleasant and friendly one, and Maud probably noticed that instinctively, for she spoke to this man whom she had never seen as if he was of her own class, anyhow. And here she laughed suddenly.
“I wonder what is going to happen next,” she said. “That’s half the joy of fishing, isn’t it? Oh, look!”
For the first time the fish jumped, showing himself from head to tail, and splashed soundingly back into the pool again.
“Far side of twenty pounds,” remarked the voice. “I told my gillie, I’m glad to say, to be down here by eleven, and he will bring a gaff. He should be here every minute. But there’ll be no gaffing going on just yet.”
This turned out to be perfectly true, and a dozen times in the next quarter of an hour Maud knew that she was within an ace of losing her fish. He behaved like the lusty fresh-run monster that he was, making disconcerting rushes down to the very tail of the pool, and running out her line almost to its last yard before she had time to follow him down the steep stony bank. Then he would seek the very deepest holes, and lie there sulking or jiggering, and putting the most dangerous snapping strains on her light tackle. Then with a rush he would come straight back towards her, so that, do what she would, there were long perilous moments, though she reeled in with a lightning hand when he was on a slack line. But at length he began to tire a little, and instead of hurling himself about the pool, allowed himself to drift every now and then with the stream. That, too, was dangerous, and she had to treat him with the utmost gentleness, since both his dead weight and the press of the water were against her. Then again a spark of his savage pride would flare up, and he would protest against this mysterious compelling force; but he was weakening.
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