CHAPTER XVII
AN EVENTFUL DAY
It was about eleven o’clock on a cloudy, unsettled morning when Nasmyth stood knee-deep in a swirling river-pool, holding a landing-net and watching Miss Hamilton, who stood on a neighbouring bank of shingle with a light trout-rod in her hand. The rod was bent, and the thin line, which was drawn tense and rigid, ripped through the surface of the pool, while there was also a suggestion of tension in the pose of the girl’s figure. She was gazing at the moving line, with a fine crimson in her cheeks and a brightness in her eyes.
“Oh,” she cried, “I’m afraid I’m going to lose it, after all.”
Nasmyth smiled reassuringly. “Keep the butt well down, and your thumb upon the reel,” he continued. “You have only to keep on a steady strain.”
A big silvery object broke the surface a dozen yards away, and then, while the reel clinked, went down again; but the line was moving towards Nasmyth now, and, in another minute or two, he flung a sharp warning at the girl as he made a sweep with the net. Then he floundered ashore, dripping, with the gleaming trout, which he laid at her feet.
“You ran that fish very well,” he told her. “In fact, there were one or two moments when I never expected you to hold it.”
The colour grew a little plainer in his companion’s face, though whether this was due to his commendation or to elation at her own success was a question. As she had just caught her first big fish, it was, perhaps, the latter.
“Oh,” she said complacently, “it isn’t so very difficult after all. But I wonder what can have become of the others of our party?”