Luck was kind to him at first: he hooked a trout in a long stretch of rippling water, and managed to land it after five minutes’ highly unscientific play, trembling all the while for fear of making a fatal mistake; quite certain that no rod could stand the strain of being bent like a whip, with a leaping, fighting fish at its delicate end. When he finally managed to net it, after two unsuccessful attempts, and had killed it with a swift, merciful blow, as his father had taught him, he laid the still-twitching body on the grass and fairly gloated. The sunlight rippled on the golden-brown sides, spotted with scarlet. It was a fine fish, nearly two pounds. Barry felt that he had made a definite step towards manhood.
“Lucky for me you were hooked so firmly, old chap,” he said. “I’d have lost you for a certainty if you’d been lightly hooked. Golly, I am glad I got you!” He cleaned the trout and stowed it in his bag.
After that the goddess of Luck removed her face from him, and he fished pool after pool in vain: growing somewhat impatient as the afternoon wore on, and no new capture had gone to join his first prey. Still, it was jolly in the quiet stillness of the bush, where only bird-calls broke the stillness: even if the fish were shy there was fresh excitement in trying each promising bit of water, and always failure was solaced by the comforting weight of the bag—he could go home and show them that a town boy could hook and kill a decent trout unaided. The red-haired girl evidently didn’t think much of townsfolk. Well, he would show her! And then he grew a little less cheerful, for when the red-haired girl was concerned Barry was still feeling cheap.
He was thinking of her when suddenly he came upon her, as he rounded a scrub-covered bend. Ahead was a wide pool with a little rushy island in its midst: he had fished it with his father, and had looked forward to getting to it again, for it was a good pool. But Robin had got there first: a fine trout on the bank beside her, almost as big a fish as his own, showed that she had not wasted her time. As he came, she flicked her spinner across the water again—and uttered an exclamation of annoyance as it caught in a little bush in the island.
Robin tried to twitch it free, but it was evidently held strongly, and she dared not risk breaking her rod. She laid it down on the bank and pulled and jerked the line—all to no purpose. The bush swayed, but the hooks of the spinner clung closely.
“Well, you are a pig!” said Robin, heartily. She glanced round and saw Barry.
“That’s hard luck,” he said. “What will you do?”
“Wade, I suppose,” she answered, shortly.
“Easier to break the line, wouldn’t it?”
Robin looked her scorn of this suggestion.