"Oh, the modesty of this young man! Wherever he takes off his cap he is at home!" she cried.
He only laughed, and she saw the slim line curl, glisten, loop and unroll in the long back cast, re-loop, and straighten out over Isla like a silver spider's floating strand. Then silver leaped to meet silver as the "Doctor" touched water; one keen scream of the reel cut the sunny silence; the rod bent like a bow, staggered in his hand, swept to the surface in a deeper bow, quivered under the tremendous rush of the great fish.
Miss Erith watched the battle from an angle not that of an angler. Her hazel eyes followed McKay where he manoeuvred in midstream with rod and gaff—happily aware of the grace in every unconscious movement of his handsome lean body—the steady, keen poise of head and shoulders, the deft and powerful play of his clean-cut, brown hands.
It came into her mind that he'd look like that on the firing-line some day when his Government was ready to release him from his obscure and terrible mission—the Government that was sending him where such men as he usually perish unobserved, unhonoured, repudiated even by those who send them to accomplish what only the most brave and unselfish dare undertake.
A little cloud cast a momentary shadow across Isla. The sea-trout died then, a quivering limber, metallic shape glittering on the ripples.
In the intense stillness from far across the noon-day world she heard the bells of Banff—a far, sweet reiteration stealing inland on the wind. She had never been so happy in her life.
Swinging back across the moor together, he with slanting rod and weighted creel, she with her wind-blown yellow hair and a bunch of reed at her belt in his honour, both seemed to understand that they had had their hour, and that the hour was ending—almost ended now.
They had remained rather silent. Perhaps grave thoughts of what lay before them beyond the bright moor's edge—beyond the far blue horizon—preoccupied their minds. And each seemed to feel that their play-day was finished—seemed already to feel physically the approach of that increasing darkness shrouding the East—that hellish mist toward which they both were headed—the twilight of the Hun.
Nothing stained the sky above them; a snowy cloud or two drifted up there,—a flight of lapwings now and then—a lone curlew. The long, squat white-washed house with its walled garden reflected in Isla Water glimmered before them in the hollow of the rolling hills.
McKay was softly and thoughtfully whistling the "Lament for
Donald"—the lament of CLAN AOIDH—his clan.