“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.
“Ah, poor darling!” said Maud once, as his struggles grew less.
And the voice answered her.
“Yes, that’s just how I often feel,” it said.
A minute or two more passed.
“Isn’t your gillie here yet?” she asked.
“Yes, he came ten minutes ago. Shall I gaff him for you, or shall he?”