“Come, now, Mac,” continued the host, “we have been talking over plans for the day. What do you intend to do?”
“Try the river,” said the old gentleman, with quiet decision, as he slowly helped himself to the ham and egg that chanced to be in front of him. “There’s a three-pounder, if not a four, which rose in the middle pool yesterday, and I feel sure of him to-day.”
“Why, Mr MacRummle,” said Mrs Gordon smilingly, “you have seen that three-pounder or four-pounder every day for a month past.”
“I have, Mrs Gordon; and I hope to see him every day for a month to come, if I don’t catch him to-day!”
“Whatever you do, Mac, don’t dive for him,” said the laird; “else we will some day have to fish yourself out of the middle pool. Have another cut of salmon, Mr Mabberly. In what direction do your tastes point?”
“I feel inclined to make a lazy day of it and go out with your son Archie,” said Mabberly, “to look at the best views for photographing. I had intended to photograph a good deal among the Western Isles, this summer; but my apparatus now lies, with the yacht, at the bottom of the sea.”
“Yes, in company with my sixteen-shooter rifle,” said Giles Jackman, with a rueful countenance.
“Well, gentlemen, I cannot indeed offer you much comfort as regards your losses, for the sea keeps a powerful hold of its possessions; but you will find my boy’s camera a fairly good one, and there are plenty of dry plates. It so happens, also, that I have a new repeating rifle in the house, which has not yet been used; so, in the meantime, at all events, neither of you will suffer much from your misfortunes.”
It was finally arranged, before breakfast was over, that MacRummle was to go off alone to his usual and favourite burn; that Jackman and Quin, under the guidance of Junkie, should try the river for salmon and sea-trout; that Barret, with ex-Skipper McPherson, Shames McGregor, Robin Tips, Eddie Gordon, the laird’s second son—a boy of twelve—and Ivor, the keeper—whose recoveries were as rapid as his relapses were sudden—should all go off in the boat to try the sea-fishing; and that Bob Mabberly, with Archie, should go photographing up one of the most picturesque of the glens, conducted by the laird himself.
As it stands to reason that we cannot accompany all of these parties, we elect to follow Giles Jackman, Quin, and Junkie up the river.