“Thank you!” said Margot, and laid her hand in his with an acceptance as simple as if he had been her own brother. It was a very pretty little hand, in which its owner felt a justifiable pride, and it lay like a white snowflake in the strong brown palm stretched out to meet it.
For just a moment George Elgood kept his fingers straight and unclasped, while he gazed downward at it with kindling eyes, then they closed in a tight, protecting clasp, and together they began the descent.
For the most part it was easy enough, but the awkward places came so often and unexpectedly that it did not seem worth while to unloose that grasp until the bottom was safely reached. Margot had a dream-like sensation of having wandered along for hours, but in reality it was a bare ten minutes before she and her guide were standing on level ground by the side of the rushing river.
“Thank you! That was a great help,” she said quietly. George Elgood, with a sudden access of shyness, made no reply, but busied himself with preparation.
“I’ll just make another cast, to show you how one sets to work. I take a pretty big fly—the trout like that. These are the flies—all sizes, as you see. I am rather proud of them, for I make them myself in the winter months, when one can enjoy only the pleasures of anticipation. It’s a good occupation for a leisure hour.”
“You make them yourself!” Margot repeated incredulously, stretching out her hand to receive one of the hairy morsels on her palm, and bending over it in unaffected admiration. “But how clever of you! How can you have the patience? It must be dreadfully finicky work!”
“It is a trifle ‘finicky,’ no doubt!” He laughed over the repetition of the word. “But it’s a refreshing change to work with one’s hands sometimes, instead of one’s brain. Now shall I give you your first lesson in the art? Don’t imagine for a moment that fishing means standing still for the hour together, with nothing more exciting than the pulling-in of your fish the moment he bites. That’s the idea of the outsider who does not know what adventure he is losing, what hope and suspense, what glorious triumph! Like most things, it’s the struggle that’s the glory of the thing, not the prize. Shall I soak this cast for you, and give you your first lesson?”
“Oh, please! I’d love it! It would be too kind of you!” cried Margot eagerly. She had not the faintest idea what “soaking a cast” might mean, and listened in bewilderment to a score of unfamiliar expressions; but it is safe to affirm that she would have assented with equal fervour to almost any proposition which her companion made.
There and then followed the first lesson on the seemingly easy, but in reality difficult, task of “casting,” the Editor illustrating his lesson by easy, graceful throws, which Margot tried in vain to imitate. She grew impatient, stamping her feet, and frowning fiercely with her dark eyebrows, while he looked on with the amused indulgence which one accords to a child.
“Are you always in such a hurry to accomplish a thing at once?”