“I wish you would make them bite,” Norman exclaimed petulantly. “I shall never catch anything with this stupid stick and string; Mr Maclean ought to have lent me one of his own rods, and then I should have caught some fish for him.”
Sandy who would never allow anything to be said against the laird in his presence, felt very angry with Norman at this remark.
“You are very ungrateful, young gentleman, to say that,” he remarked. “I have let you fish long enough already, though if you were to try till nightfall, you would go back with your basket empty, so just draw in your line and pit quiet, it’s time to be making our way back.”
Norman looked somewhat surprised at this address.
“It’s all the fault of the stupid stick,” he exclaimed, and standing up he threw it away from him into the loch, and began dancing about to give vent to his anger and disappointment.
The old man rowed on, taking no notice of his foolish conduct. Fanny, however, felt very much ashamed of him, and begged him to be quiet, but he only jumped about the more, declaring that he would complain to his mamma of the way Sandy had treated him.
After he had thus given vent to his feelings for some time, and had become more quiet, Sandy, who was really good-natured, and was sorry for his disappointment, promised that if he would be a good boy, he would take him out in the evening when the fish were more ready to bite, and show him how he himself caught them. This pacified him, and he sat quiet for some time. Still, as he thought how foolish he would look going back with his big basket and no fish in it, he began again to grow angry.
“It’s all Fanny’s fault,” he said to himself, “if she had not wanted to row about the lake, I should have had time to catch some fish.”
Not knowing what was passing in his mind, Fanny, whose eyes fell on the basket, laughingly said to Norman.
“Shall I carry it home again, or will you and Sandy carry it between you on a stick, as you proposed?”