"Mind your business," said I, sitting down beside Silver Heels; and truly enough he did, for, before I was seated, Peter jumped up, struggling with a fat white perch, which he landed, yelling and dancing in his vanity.
"Never you mind, Silver Heels," said I, tying a plated hook on her line, and covering it with a long silvery strip of skin and pin-feathers from a pullet's neck. "Now do as I say; toss the bait down stream, so! Now draw it slowly till it spins like a top."
Ere I could end my instructions I saw the nose of a great gold-green pike close after her bait.
"Slack!" I whispered. "He has it!"
She held the rod still. There came a twitch, more twitches, but so gentle you would have vowed 'twas a tender-mouthed minnow lipping the line.
"He gorged it," I muttered; "strike hard!"
"A log!" wailed Silver Heels, as she felt the rod stagger when the hook, deeply struck, embedded barb and shank.
But it was no log, for instantly the great fish shot into the air, and lay a-wallowing and thrashing in mid-stream.
"A chain-pike!" cried Sir William, briskly. "Do you net him, Michael, else Felicity will take a swim she has not bargained for!"
I ran to Sir William, who thrust the net at me, and back again as fast as my legs could move to Silver Heels, who had dropped the rod and now, sprawling on the moss, lay a-pulling at the line which was cutting her tender fingers.