"No fair!" bellowed fat Peter, jealously. "Let her bag her own game as I do! Hi-yi! Another trout!"
But spite of Peter's clamour and Esk's injured howls, I netted the floundering pike and flung it among the bushes, where young Bareshanks gaffed it and held it aloft.
There it hung, all spray and green and gold, marked with the devil's chain pattern; and its wolf-jaws gaping, lined with teeth.
"Oh, Michael," quavered Silver Heels, staring at her captive. She moved a little nearer to the fish, plucking up her skirts with her fingers, and bending forward, alarmed, amazed at the fierce, dripping creature.
"Ugh! There's blood on it!" she whispered, taking fast hold of my arm.
"Is it not a noble prize!" I urged, eagerly. But she shook her head and turned away, holding me tightly by the sleeve.
"Are you not proud?" I persisted, irritably. "It is the biggest fish any have yet caught. You will gain second prize, silly! What's the matter with you, anyhow!" I added, in a temper.
"I can't help it," she said, tremulously; "I'm not a man, and it frightens me to kill. I shall fish no more. Ugh—the blood!—and how it quivered when the gillie gaffed it! I could cry my eyes out for the life I took so lightly!"
I was disgusted and hurt, too, for I had thought to please her. I drew my sleeve from her fingers, but she only stood there like a simpleton harping on one string:
"Oh, the brave fish! Oh, the poor brave fish! I hurt it!—I saw blood on it, Michael."