This astounding improbability, of a sudden, struck Rose dumb. Then she said, abruptly, “Who is that away up the river?”
“Two young Boston men. Are they from the island camp, Tom?”
“Yes, sir,” said Tom, in his great voice. “Mr. Ellett, and Mr.—I don’t rightly mind me of the other man’s name. Think it’s Carington.”
“Rather a pretty name,” said Rose,—“Carington.”
“Not a New England name, I suspect. Probably Southern. How easily one tells where most of our family names belong,—the older ones, I mean. Oh, there is their camp. See how neat everything is about their tents. Above this point, Rose, there are a few clearings, and the graveyard lies back from the shore, where our Harry is buried. Poor little man! He was well out of it, Rose, well out of it. We rarely talk of him. Your mother dislikes it. For myself, I like better to speak of my dead—and they are many—in a wholesome way, without the strange reserve which even the best of folks have about their lost ones. However!”
“Shall we anchor to the head of the pool, sir?” said Tom.
“Yes, yes. And now, Rose, I want first to have you watch me closely,—hand, rod, and line,—and to try to follow the fly on the water. I promise you to talk enough about the trees and the waters next Sunday. There are some dead forests above us, on the river, from which I want sketches made; but now it is the more serious business of the salmon; ask what you like.”
“Well, then, isn’t it late to fish? It is eight o’clock.”
“No; the salmon is an aristocrat, and rises late. If you want striped bass, the break of day is none too early.”
“But will that thin line—what you call the casting-line—hold a great thing like the fish I saw leap?”