The fish was losing strength. All the line had been got in, although the forefinger of the fisherman felt the pulse of his captive, as it were, ready for any expiring plunge. They caught occasional glimpses of a large white body gliding through the ruddy-brown water. Duncan was down on his knees more than once, with the landing-net in his hand, but again and again the big fish would sheer off, with just such indications of power as to make his conqueror cautious. At length he was guided slowly in to the bank. Behind him the landing-net was gently let into the water – then a quick forward movement, and a fourteen pounder was scooped up and flung upon the bank, landing-net and all. “Hurrah!” cried Ingram, and Lavender blushed like a school-girl; and Sheila, quite naturally and without thinking, shook hands with him and said, “I congratulate you;” and there was more congratulation in her glad eyes than in that simple little gesture.
It was a good beginning, and of course the young man was very much pleased to show Sheila that he was no mere lily-fingered idler about town. He buckled to his work in earnest. With a few more casts he soon got into the way of managing the big rod; and every time the flies fell lightly on the other side of the pool, to be dragged with gentle jerks across the foaming current of the stream. Ingram went back to his couch on the rock. He lay and watched the monotonous flinging back of the long rod, the light whistle of the line through the air, and the careful manipulation of the flies through the water. Or was it something else that he was watching – something that awakened in his mind a sudden sense of surprise and fear, and a new and strange consciousness that he had been guiltily remiss?
Sheila was wholly pre-occupied with her companion and his efforts. He had had one or two rises, but had struck either too soon or too late, until at last there was a terrific plunge and rush, and again the line was whirled out. But Duncan did not like the look of it somehow. The fish had been sheering off when it was hooked, and the deep plunge at the outset was ugly.
“Now will you take the rod?” said Lavender to Sheila.
But before she could answer the fish had come rushing up to the surface, and had thrown itself out of the water, so that it fell on the opposite bank. It was a splendid animal, and Duncan, despite his doubts, called out to Lavender to slacken his hold. There was another spring into the air, the fish fell with a splash into the water, and the line was flying helplessly into the air with the two flies floating about.
“Ay,” said Duncan, with a sigh, “it wass foul-hooked. It wass no chance of catching him whatever.”
Lavender was most successful next time, however, with a pretty little grilse of about half a dozen pounds, that seemed to have in him the spirit and fight of a dozen salmon. How he rushed and struggled, how he plunged and sulked, how he burrowed along the banks, and then ran out to the middle of the pool, and then threw himself into the air, with the line apparently, but not really, doubling up under him. All these things can only be understood by the fisherman who has played in a Highland stream a wild and powerful little grilse fresh in from the salt water. And it was Sheila who held him captive, who humored him when he sulked, and gently guided him away from dangerous places, and kept him well in hand when he tried to cross the current, until at last, all the fierceness gone out of him, he let himself be tenderly inveigled into the side of the pool, where Duncan, by a dexterous movement, surrounded him with network and placed his shining body among the bright green grass.
But Ingram was not so overjoyed this time. He complimented Sheila in a friendly way, but he was rather grave, and obviously did not care for this business of fishing. And so Sheila, fancying that he was rather dull because he was not joining in the sport, proposed that he should walk back to the house with her, leaving Mr. Lavender with Duncan. And Ingram was quite ready to do so.
But Lavender protested that he cared very little for salmon-fishing. He suggested that they should all go back together. The sun was killing the wind, and soon the pools would be as clear as glass. Had they not better try in the afternoon, when, perhaps, the breeze would freshen? And so they walked back to the house.
On the garden-seat a book lay open. It was Mr. Mill’s “Essay on Liberty,” and it had evidently been left there by Mr. Mackenzie, perhaps – who knows? – to hint to his friends from the South that he was familiar with the problems of the age. Lavender winked to Ingram, but somehow his companion seemed in no humor for a joke.
They had luncheon then, and after luncheon Ingram touched Lavender on the shoulder, and said, “I want to have a word with you privately. Let’s walk down to the shore.”
And so they did; and when they had got some little distance from the house, Ingram said: “Look here, Lavender. I mean to be frank with you. I don’t think it fair that you should try to drag Sheila Mackenzie into a flirtation. I knew you would fall in love with her. For a week or two, that does not matter – it harms no one. But I never thought of the chance of her being led into such a thing, for what is a mere passing amusement to you would be a very serious thing to her.”
“Well?”
“Well? Is not that enough? Do you think it fair to take advantage of this girl’s innocence of the world?”
Lavender stopped in the middle of the path, and said, somewhat stiffly, “This may be as well settled at once. You have talked of flirtation and all that sort of thing. You may regard it as you please, but before I leave this island I mean to ask Sheila Mackenzie to be my wife.”
“Why, you are mad!” cried Ingram, amazed to see that the young man was perfectly serious.
The other shrugged his shoulders.
“Do you mean to say,” continued Ingram, “that even supposing Sheila would consent – which is impossible – you would try to take away that girl from her father?”
“Girls must leave their fathers sometime or other,” said Lavender, somewhat sullenly.
“Not unless they are asked.”
“Oh, well, they are sure to be asked, and they are sure to go. If their mothers had not done so before them, where would they be? It’s all very well for you to talk about it, and argue it out as a theory, but I know what the facts of the case are, and what any man in my position would do; and I know that I am careless of any consequences, so long as I can secure her for my wife.”
“Apparently you are – careless of any consequences to herself or those about her.”
“But what is your objection, Ingram?” said the young man, suddenly abandoning his defiant manner; “why should you object? Do you think I would make a bad husband to the woman I married?”
“I believe nothing of the sort. I believe you would make a very good husband, if you were to marry a woman whom you know something about, and whom you had really learned to love and respect through your knowledge of her. I tell you, you know nothing about Sheila Mackenzie as yet. If you were to marry her to-morrow, you would discover in six months she was a woman wholly different from what you had expected.”
“Very well, then,” said Lavender, with an air of triumph; “you can’t deny this; you think so much of her that the real woman I would discover must be better than the one I imagine; and so you don’t expect I shall be disappointed?”
“If you marry Sheila Mackenzie you will be disappointed – not through her fault, but your own. Why, a more preposterous notion never entered a man’s head! She knows nothing of your friends or your ways of life; you know nothing of hers. She would be miserable in London, even if you could persuade her father to go with her, which is the most unlikely thing in the world. Do give up this foolish idea, like a good fellow, and do it before Sheila is dragged into a flirtation that may have the most serious consequences to her.”
Lavender would not promise, but all that afternoon various resolutions and emotions