As they embarked, David spoke to Swickey, recalling a former day’s fishing on the pond. Bascomb noticed her quick change of manner. “She don’t chirrup like that when I talk to her,” he thought. They paddled across the pond and down the opposite shore, enjoying the absolute silence of the place, broken only by the soft swish and drip of the paddle-blades. Finally they ceased paddling and sat watching the long shore-line that swam inverted in the clear depths of a placid underworld, where the tree-tops disappeared in a fathomless sky beneath them.
Bascomb accepted cheerfully the limitations imposed by the breaking of his glasses, and as the canoe shot ahead again he watched Swickey, her moccasined feet tucked beneath the seat, swinging to the dip and lift of the paddles, all unconscious that her every movement was a pleasure to him. Gradually the intensity of noon drew back into the far shadows of the forest, and a light ripple ran scurrying over the water and vanished in the distance.
“I smell air,” said Bascomb. “Guess the atmosphere is awake again.”
“The trout will be jumping in an hour. What time do you think it is?” said David.
“About two o’clock.”
“Just three forty-five.”
“What!” Bascomb turned an incredulous face toward David. “Well, we’ve all been asleep. It’s a caution how the ‘forest primeval’ can swallow up a couple of hours without a murmur. Let’s try a cast or two.”
“There’s only one place in this lake—for it is really a lake—where you can catch trout. That’s a secret, but we’ll show you where it is,” said Swickey, as she took her rod, drew out a length of line, and reached forward in the bow and pulled a wisp of grass from a tin can.
“Shades of William Black if it isn’t a squirm, and an adult at that! Won’t they take a fly?” asked Bascomb, as Swickey crocheted the hook through a fat angleworm.
“Sometimes,” replied David. “Here’s the fly-book.”