White Heather: A Novel (Volume 1 of 3). William Black

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СКАЧАТЬ clean fish, sir! a clean fish!' was the welcome cry.

      But there was no time to hazard doubts or ask questions; this sudden visitor at the end of the line had not at all made up his mind to be easily captured. First of all he came sailing in quietly towards the boat, giving the fisherman all he could do to reel in and keep a strain on him; then he whirled out the line so suddenly that the rod was nearly bent double; and then, in deep water, he kept persistently sulking and boring, refusing to yield an inch. This was a temporary respite.

      'Well, now, is this one all right?' Mr. Hodson called out – but he was rather bewildered, for he knew not what this violent beast might not be after next, and the gathering darkness looked strange, the shadows of Clebrig overhead seeming to blot out the sky.

      'A clean fish, sir,' was the confident answer.

      'No doubt o' that, sir,' even the melancholy Duncan admitted; for he foresaw a dram now, if not a tip in actual money.

      Then slowly and slowly the salmon began to yield to the strain on him – which was considerable, for this was the heavier of the two rods – and quickly the line was got in, the pliant curve of the rod remaining always the same; while Mr. Hodson flattered himself that he was doing very well now, and that he was surely becoming the master of the situation. But the next instant something happened that his mind was not rapid enough to comprehend: something dreadful and horrible and sudden: there was a whirring out of the reel so rapid that he had to lower the point of the rod almost to the water; then the fish made one flashing spring along the surface – and this time he saw the creature, a gleam of silver in the dusk – and then, to his unspeakable dismay and mortification, he felt the line quite slack. He did utter a little monosyllable.

      'He's off, sir,' the melancholy gillie said in a tone of sad resignation.

      'Not a bit, sir, not a bit! Reel in, quick!' Ronald called to him: and the fisherman had sense enough to throw the rod as far back as he could to see if there was yet some strain on it. Undoubtedly the fish was still there. Moreover, this last cantrip seemed to have taken the spirit out of him. By and by, with a strong, steady strain on him, he suffered himself to be guided more and more towards the boat, until, now and again, they could see a faint gleam in the dark water; and now Ronald had relinquished his oar, and was crouching down in the stern – this time not with the landing-net in his hand, but with the bright steel clip just resting on the gunwale.

      'He's showing the white feather now, sir; give him a little more of the butt.'

      However, he had not quite given in yet: each time he came in sight of the boat he would make another ineffectual rush, but rarely getting down deeper than three or four yards. And then, with a short line and the butt well towards him, he began to make slow semicircles this way and that; and always he was being steadily hauled nearer the coble; until with one quick dip and powerful upward pull Ronald had got him transfixed on the gaff and landed – the huge, gleaming, beautiful silver creature! – in the bottom of the boat.

      'Well done, sir! – a clean fish! – a beauty – the first caught in Scotland this year, I know!' – these were the exclamations he heard now; but he scarcely knew how it had all happened, for he had been more excited than he was aware of. He felt a vague and general sense of satisfaction; wanted to give the men a glass of whisky, and had none to give them; thought that the capture of a salmon was a noble thing; would have liked his daughter Carry to hear the tidings at once; and had a kind of general purpose to devote the rest of that year to salmon-fishing in the Highlands. From this entrancement he was awakened by a dispute between the two men as to the size of the fish.

      'He's twelve pounds, and no more,' the melancholy Duncan said, eyeing him all over.

      'Look at his shoulders, man,' Ronald rejoined. 'Fourteen pounds if he's an ounce. Duncan, lad, ye've been put off your guessing by the sight of the kelt.'

      'He's a good fish whateffer,' Duncan was constrained to admit – for he still foresaw that prospect of a dram when they returned to the inn, with perhaps a more substantial handselling of good luck.

      Of course, they could do no more fishing that afternoon, for it was nearly dark; but it was wonderful how the capture of this single salmon seemed to raise the spirits of the little party as they got ashore and walked home. There was a kind of excitement in the evening air. They talked in a rapid and eager way – about what the fish had done; what were the chances of such and such a rush; the probable length of time it had been up from the sea; the beauty of its shape; the smallness of its head; the freshness of its colour, and so forth – and there was a kind of jubilation abroad. The first fish caught in Scotland that year! – of course, it must be packed forthwith and sent south to his daughter Carry and her friends. And Mr. Hodson was quite facetious with the pretty Nelly when she came in to lay the table for dinner; and would have her say whether she had not yet fixed her mind on one or other of these young fellows around. As for the small hamlet of Inver-Mudal, it was about as solitary and forlorn a habitation as any to be found in the wilds of northern Scotland; and he was there all by himself; but with the blazing peat-fire, and the brilliant white cloth on the dinner-table, and the consciousness that the firm, stout-shouldered, clean-run fourteen-pounder was lying in the dairy on a slab of cold stone, he considered that Inver-Mudal was a most enjoyable and sociable and comfortable place, and that he had not felt himself so snug and so much at home for many and many a day.

      CHAPTER IV

      A LETTER

      After dinner he found himself with a pretty long evening before him, and thought he could not do better than devote the major part of it to writing to his daughter. He would not confess to himself that he wanted her to know at once that he had caught his first salmon; that was but a trivial incident in the life of a philosopher and student of mankind; still she would be glad to hear of his adventures; and it was not an unpleasant way of passing the time. So he wrote as follows: —

      'MY DARLING CARRY – You will be rejoiced to learn that I have discovered a harbour of refuge for you, where that minute organ you call your mind may lay aside its heaviest load of trouble. Here, at last, is one corner of Europe where you need have no fear of anybody mistaking you for one of the Boston girls of fiction; indeed you might go about all day talking your beloved Texas with impunity; although, my dear young lady, that is a habit you would do well to drop, for sooner or later it will get you into trouble when you are least expecting it. But short of scalping children or using a bowie-knife for a fork, I think you might do or say anything you pleased here; it is the most out-of-the-world sort of place; a community of fifteen or twenty, I should guess, hidden away in a hole of a valley, and separated from the rest of the universe by great ranges of mountains and interminable miles of moorland. The people seem very friendly, but shy; and I don't quite catch on to them yet, for their speech bothers me – scarcely any two of them seem to have the same accent; but I hope to get to know something more about them next Monday, when they have a New Year celebration, which I am invited to the same. Would you like to join in? By all means come if you care to; the station is Lairg; wire, and I will meet you there. You will miss the wild excitement of paying afternoon calls and drinking tea; but you will get sunlight and fresh air into your lungs. The talk about the fierce weather is all nonsense. There is a sprinkling of snow on the higher hills, but the temperature is quite agreeable. In any case I expect you to come here with me in March, when the salmon-fishing will begin in earnest; and I have no doubt you will have made the acquaintance of the whole of the people in a couple of days, shy as they are. There is another point I have not forgotten. As you seem determined to set yourself up for your lifetime with reminiscences of your travels in Europe, I have had to consider what you could carry away from here. I am afraid that Inver-Mudal jewellery wouldn't make much of a show; and I haven't seen any shell necklaces or silk scarves or blue pots about. But what about a Highland maid? I suppose the N.Y. Customs officers wouldn't charge much for that article of vertu. Now the maid who waits on me here is very СКАЧАТЬ