Then he roused himself and contrived to get the bit of feather into the water, though he was glad she did not observe the process.
He offered up a silent invocation:
“Oh, trout, king of all your fellows come to my hook and I will hallow your death with prayers of thanksgiving. Set me well before her eyes and I vow never to disturb your finny kingdom again.”
Had he only anticipated such an emergency as this he would have given over the hours he had wasted so idly in dreams all these years, to the perfecting himself in the art of casting a fly. There were those days in London; he saw now that he could have used the Thames to much better advantage than in merely gazing at its dull fogs; there was the Seine, and he had stood lazily upon its banks for hours content in watching the little barges puff up and down.
He felt a ferocious tug at his line. Before he recovered from his surprise a speckled red body flung itself from the water and, striking it again in a churning splash, cut an arrow-like course down stream. He felt as though the line were knotted about his heart. He knew well enough that now the thing to do was to keep the line taut.
“At any cost,” he muttered grimly.
“You’ve hooked him!” he heard her voice.
That was not quite accurate; the trout had hooked himself. But if there was any grace in the strong will of a man he would keep him hooked.
She withdrew her line to give him plenty of room and to watch him. There are few things a man cannot do if the right woman is watching him. He fought the big trout back and forth, anticipating by instinct every sudden turn, every inshore dart, every upstream flash. The line did not slacken a quarter of an inch. Foot by foot he forced the speckled beauty towards the bank. He was not even deceived when for a second the fish lay passive a second and then darted towards the shelter of a group of bowlders. He checked him within the very shadow of this hiding-place. Then inch by inch he reeled again, dragging him in relentlessly towards his hand.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “We should have brought the landing-net. But we don’t often have use for it in these waters.”