“But do visitors—tourists—never pass this way?”
“Yes, and a few salmon-fishers, like myself, come occasionally in the season; but then we dispose ourselves in little lodgings, here and there, some of us with the farmers, one or two of us with the priest.”
“Father Dyke?” broke I in.
“Yes; you know him, perhaps?”
“I have heard of him, and met him, indeed,” added I, after a pause. “Where may his house be?”
“The prettiest spot in the whole glen. If you 'd like to see it in this picturesque moonlight, come along with me.”
I accepted the invitation at once, and we walked on together. The easy, half-careless tone of the stranger, the loose, lounging stride of his walk, and a certain something in his mellow voice, seemed to indicate one of those natures which, so to say, take the world well,—temperaments that reveal themselves almost immediately. He talked away about fishing as he went, and appeared to take a deep interest in the sport, not heeding much the ignorance I betrayed on the subject, nor my ignoble confession that I had never adventured upon anything higher than a worm and a quill.
“I'm sure,” said he, laughingly, “Tom Dyke never encouraged you in such sporting-tackle, glorious fly-fisher as he is.”
“You forget, perhaps,” replied I, “that I scarcely have any acquaintance with him. We met once only at a dinnerparty.”
“He's a pleasant fellow,” resumed he; “devilish wideawake, one must say; up to most things in this same world of ours.”