But Mary—who intended to catch just one more fish—had barely resumed her operations before a most unforeseen mishap occurred to her. After a 'spate,' the water of the May is often dark in some places, and to reach a pool wherein she knew by past experience some fine trout were sure to be lurking, by the assistance of a stone she reached a flat boulder fully six feet from the bank, but her foot—light thought it was—had barely left the former ere it turned over in the current and vanished, leaving her isolated amid the stream, whereat her terrier yelped and barked furiously.
The distance was too great for her to leap; moreover, the bank was steep there, and to fall would end in a complete immersion, and, gathering her skirts above her little booted feet, she looked around her with a comical air of perplexity and dismay, which her companion of the rod was not slow to perceive, and again he instantly approached, but this time with an absolute smile rippling all over his face.
'You cannot leap this distance without risk, and so must permit me to assist you again,' said he, stepping at once into the water, which rose midway up his long fishing-boots. He put an arm round her—a strong arm she felt it to be—and at once lifted her to the bank.
'I have to thank you again, sir,' said Mary, blushing in earnest now.
'I am so glad that I was within sight—you were quite in a scrape, perched on that fragment of rock, with the dark water eddying round you,' said he, again lifting his hat; 'but perhaps you can repay me by indicating the nearest path to Craigmhor?'
Mary did so, on which, still lingering near, he remarked,
'And so these are the Birks of Invermay, so famed in Scottish song, and story, too, I believe? It is indeed a lovely spot!'
'Lovely, indeed,' replied Mary, as the praise of her native glen went straight to her heart; 'even we, who live here all the year round, never tire of its beauty.'
'I am here for the first time; I came to this quarter only yesterday, and the alternately bold and sylvan nature of the scenery impressed me greatly. You must be fond of fishing,' he added, with a well-bred smile, 'and seem more expert with your rod than I.'
'But I only know the May,' replied Mary, taking her rod to pieces as a hint that she was about to withdraw, on which the stranger began to do the same.