She followed the brook up its bed for some distance, and at last she heard the bushes rustling, and called eagerly, and there was Jack, safe and sound, with three or four good-sized trout on a birch twig.
"There are the best trout I have caught this summer," said he, triumphantly.
And Alice forgot to scold him at first, she was so pleased. "We must have them for our supper," she told the proud fisherman; and they hurried back to the roadside.
"I haven't been gone long, have I?" asked Jack, persuasively. "I hated to turn back, you know."
And Alice said that they must hurry; it was already nearly five, and they had five or six miles further to go to the house where they were to spend the night.
But Jack was hot and tired, and said he must have some biscuits, and rest a few minutes. It was so bright a day that it would not be dark early. And who cared if it were? The road was straight and safe enough, and it would be much cooler after the sun went down a little. It was really very hot, and Alice was satisfied, now that he had come back, and she made no objection when he had finished his lunch, and had taken a drink of the cold brook water, and threw him self down to rest.
"You have been sitting still here while I have been going up the side of the hill," said he. "No wonder that you are ready to go on."
"I WISH A STAGE WOULD COME BY."
Alice wrapped the trout in some great beech leaves, and tied a bit of fish-line round them. One was unusually large, and Jack was very proud of it, and told her what a hard time he had in catching it, and how it came very near going into the brook again after he had fairly landed it. After a while they got up unwillingly and set off again. The sun was almost down behind the mountains, but the air seemed to grow hotter, and hotter, although they were in the shade. The leaves were perfectly still on the trees; there did not seem to be a breath of wind.