“Noo the next,” said Tavish encouragingly; and, comforting himself with the idea that if he was to fall into the rushing water it seemed shallower farther out than close in-shore, where it looked very black and deep, he stepped out to the next stone, and then to the next, wondering the while that nothing had happened to him. Then on and on from stone to stone, feeling giddy, excited, and in a nervous state which impelled him on, though all the while he seemed to have a tragedy taking place before his eyes—of one Max Blande, visitor from London, slipping from a rock out in the midst of that rushing river, and being rolled over and over in the foam, tossed here, banged there against projecting masses of rock, gliding round and round in smooth black whirlpools, and finally being fished out a mile below, dead and cold, and with his clothes clinging to him.
He was just about to get on to the imaginary scene of his own funeral being conducted in the most impressive manner, when the voice of the forester made him start.
“Gude—gude—gude!” he cried. “Why, ye can leap frae stane to stane as weel as young Scood.”
The praise acted like a spur, and Max pressed on over the rest of the rocks till he came to the last, quite a buttress nearly in the middle of the stream.
“Ye’ll no’ go farther,” cried Tavish.
Max did not intend to try, for the next step would have been into the cold boiling water.
“Got one yet, Max?” shouted Kenneth, his voice sounding weak and faint in the roar of the hurrying stream.
Max shook his head without daring to turn, as he stood there with the foaming, glancing water all round, steadying himself, and forgetting all about the object for which he had come, his one idea being that his object there was to balance himself and to keep from falling.
“Noo,” shouted Tavish, and his voice electrified Max, who nearly dropped the rod. “That’s the way, laddie. Tak a good grip o’ the butt and mak’ your first cast ahint that black stane. She shall hook a fush there. Leuk, did ye see the fush rise?”
Max was trying to make out among scores the black stone “ahint” which he was to throw his “flee,” and in a kind of desperation he gave the rod a wave as if it was a great cart-whip, and threw.