My face grew red, then white, I’m sure, for one moment it seemed to burn, the next it felt wet and cold. I did not feel sleepy any longer, but in an intense state of excitement, for those words came from the window just above my head, so that I could hear them plainly.
“It’s all nonsense,” I said to myself directly after. “They know I’m here, and it’s done to scare me.”
Just then the churring and screeching of the grinding steel burst out louder than ever, and I determined to go away and treat all I had heard with silent contempt. Pulling up my line just as a fisher will, I threw in again for one final try, and hardly had the bait reached the bottom before the float bobbed.
I could not believe it at first. It seemed that I must have jerked the line—but no, there it was again, another bob, and another, and then a series of little bobs, and the float moved slowly off over the surface, carrying with it a dozen or so of blacks.
I was about to strike, but I thought I would give the fish a little more time and make sure of him, and, forgetting all about the voices overhead, I was watching the float slowly gliding away, bobbing no longer, but with the steady motion that follows if a good fish has taken the bait.
And what a delight that was! What a reward to my patience! That it was a big one I had no doubt. If it had been a little fish it would have jigged and bobbed the float about in the most absurd way, just as if the little fish were thoughtless, and in a hurry to be off to play on the surface, whereas a big fish made it a regular business, and was calm and deliberate in every way.
“Now for it,” I thought, and raising the point of the rod slowly I was just going to strike when the grinding above my head ceased, and one of the voices I had before heard said:
“Well, we two have got to go up to the Pointed Star to-night to get our orders, and then we shall know what’s what.”
I forgot all about the fish and listened intently.
“Nay, they can’t hear,” said the voice again, as if in answer to a warning; “wheels makes too much noise. I don’t care if they did. They’ve had warnings enew. What did they want to coom here for?”