There chanced to come along the platform a little, wiry, elderly man, with a wholesome-looking weather-tanned face, who was carrying a bundle of fishing-rods over his shoulder; and seeing how Ronald was engaged he spoke to him in passing and began to talk about the dogs.
'Perhaps they're your dogs?' Ronald said.
'No, no, our folk are a' fishing folk,' said the little old man, who was probably a gardener or something of the kind, and who seemed to take readily to this new acquaintance. 'I've just been in to Glasgow to get a rod mended, and to bring out a new one that the laird has bought for himself.'
He grinned in a curious sarcastic way.
'He's rather a wee man; and this rod—Lord sakes, ye never saw such a thing! it would break the back o' a Samson—bless ye, the butt o't's like a weaver's beam; and for our gudeman to buy a thing like that—well, rich folk hae queer ways o' spending their money.'
He was a friendly old man; and this joke of his master having bought so tremendous an engine seemed to afford him so much enjoyment that when Ronald asked to be allowed to see this formidable weapon he said at once—
'Just you come along outside there, and we'll put it thegither, and ye'll see what kind o' salmon-rod an old man o' five foot five thinks he can cast wi'——'
'If it's no taking up too much of your time,' Ronald suggested, but eager enough he was to get a salmon-rod into his fingers again.
'I've three quarters of an hour to wait,' was the reply, 'for I canna make out they train books ava.'
They went out beyond the platform to an open space, and very speedily the big rod was put together. It was indeed an enormous thing; but a very fine rod, for all that; and so beautifully balanced and so beautifully pliant that Ronald, after having made one or two passes through the air with it, could not help saying to the old man, and rather wistfully too—