CHAPTER X
ON TROUT FISHING AND BOW-KNOTS
With what seemed to Barnes an inspired appetite, Mr. Van Patten expressed a wish for brook-trout.
“Eleanor knows the stream,” he said. “And perhaps you yourself would enjoy a little fishing.”
“I’d like nothing better,” Barnes responded heartily. “I’ll see if she will go this afternoon.”
Accordingly he began a still hunt for her and surprised her from ambush as she was passing through the living-room.
“Your father wishes us to go fishing,” he informed her bluntly lest she should disappear before he had time to announce the glad news.
“Oh dear, I have so much to do,” she exclaimed.
“Are the duets on again this morning?” he inquired.
“No, it isn’t that.”
“Then?”
“Aunt Philomela is at her accounts. She becomes so confused when adding.”
“I sympathize with her.”
“In making up her column,” she explained. “Aunt insists upon putting down what each item is for; then she tries to add the items as well as the figures. Like adding parsnips and butter.”
“They are very good when added in a frying-pan,” he averred.
“But you can’t add them in a column. She only does it towards the end.”
“But your father’s fish,” he reminded her.
“Perhaps you would go alone?”
“I enjoy fishing,” he answered with a sinking heart, “but that wouldn’t bring your father a fish. I never have any luck. To-day we must be pot hunters and work for results.”
“Well, if Daddy wishes a trout he ought to have one I suppose,” she thought aloud.
“Undoubtedly,” he declared.
“Then I’ll be ready in twenty minutes.”
“May I dig the bait while you’re gone?” he inquired.
“The trout rise very well to flies,” she informed him.
For which he was glad. He was not prudishly sensitive about such things but still he would not enjoy watching her impale a worm. It was a wriggling function that he himself did not particularly relish, less from humanitarian than æsthetic scruples.
She returned dressed in a short khaki skirt of hunting green, a wide-brimmed boy’s straw hat and with a wicker fish-basket slung over her shoulder. Her feet were encased in high oiled boots. She stepped to the closet and brought out two rod cases, a book of flies, and two reels.
“Have you any choice of weight?” she asked holding out both rods.
“You’d better give me the heavier one,” he suggested off hand.
The most of his fishing had been done from a flat boat with a bamboo pole. Still he did not intend to admit to her such unsportsmanlike conduct. He knew nothing of fly fishing but he was determined to observe her closely and follow her example in every detail. When in college he had gone South with some friends for a week of bird shooting and had acquitted himself creditably by this method, though he had never before held a gun. In the same way, by his quickness and determination, he had ridden fifteen miles the first time he was ever upon a horse.
They left the house without seeing Aunt Philomela, though as he went down the path Barnes felt her eyes burning into his back. They crossed the road and pushed through the fields to the meadow-brook. They followed the banks for the matter of half a mile before she finally stopped to put together the poles.
She glanced at the sky, at the water, and then ran her pink finger tips over the gorgeous medley of brightly-feathered flies. She selected one for herself and handed the book to him.
“I’m trying a Silver Moth,” she announced.
It took him longer to decide because there were no more Silver Moths, but he finally drew out a gay scarlet fly with a body of mottled brown. Its coloring was as daintily bright as that of a butterfly. He went upon the simple theory that if he were a trout it would be with some such fastidious temptation that he himself would coquet. He adjusted it slowly with one eye upon her.
She poised herself upon the edge of the bank with her figure erect, alert, every fine line pulsating with life. With a full, free arm movement she swung the lithe pole back, then forward. The Silver Moth circled her head, paused a moment ten yards behind her, and then following the swishing line darted straight out over the stream, swift as a homing bee and kissed the water with scarcely a ripple. She drew it back and this time sent it even farther. Then once again, until the long line reached almost to the opposite bank.
What a picture that would make! Diana with her hounds was not half the subject. What gentle strength there was in every movement—what rhythm, and above the beautiful body, what a head. The wonder of those features was that they lived up to any part you wished to assume for them. A short while ago they had consistently upheld the traditions of Venice; still later they had blended into dusk dreams; now they expressed the elemental beauty of the Indian.
As the Silver Moth rippled against the current, she turned to see what he was about. She saw and turned back again to the Silver Moth.
“What fly are you using?” she inquired.
“A butterfly,” he answered with an intake of breath.
Then he roused himself and contrived to get the bit of feather into the water, though he was glad she did not observe the process.
He offered up a silent invocation:
“Oh, trout, king of all your fellows come to my hook and I will hallow your death with prayers of thanksgiving. Set me well before her eyes and I vow never to disturb your finny kingdom again.”
Had he only anticipated such an emergency as this he would have given over the hours he had wasted so idly in dreams all these years, to the perfecting himself in the art of casting a fly. There were those days in London; he saw now that he could have used the Thames to much better advantage than in merely gazing at its dull fogs; there was the Seine, and he had stood lazily upon its banks for hours content in watching the little barges puff up and down.
He felt a ferocious tug at his line. Before he recovered from his surprise a speckled red body flung itself from the water and, striking it again in a churning splash, cut an arrow-like course down stream. He felt as though the line were knotted about his heart. He knew well enough that now the thing to do was to keep the line taut.
“At any cost,” he muttered grimly.
“You’ve hooked him!” he heard her voice.
That was not quite accurate; the trout had hooked himself. But if there was any grace in the strong will of a man he would keep him hooked.
She withdrew her line to give him plenty of room and to watch him. There are few things a man cannot do if the right woman is watching him. He fought the big trout back and forth, anticipating by instinct every sudden turn, every inshore dart, every upstream flash. The line did not slacken a quarter of an inch. Foot by foot he forced the speckled beauty towards the bank. He was not even deceived when for a second the fish lay passive a second and then darted towards the shelter of a group of bowlders. He checked him within the very shadow of this hiding-place. Then inch by inch he reeled again, dragging him in relentlessly towards his hand.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “We should have brought the landing-net. But we don’t often have use for it in these waters.”
He drew the line still closer towards his itching fingers. He grasped it. He gave it a tug and in another second had tossed upon the grass the largest trout ever taken from Schuyler brook.
She clapped her hands in applause.
“He’s a beauty,” she cried enthusiastically.
“Pretty fair,” he confessed modestly.
“And you handled him so well!” she praised.
“Thank you.”
“And to think you captured him with a Scarlet Beauty. I have never been able to get a rise with that fly.”
“On a bright day,” he replied sagely, “and in slow waters, they seem to work very well.”
“Your judgment was sound,” she admitted.
“It was the judgment of the gods.”
“Then the gods are certainly with you.”
“They are,” he confessed brazenly.
“I think I shall change my fly,” she determined. “What should you advise?”
He picked out for her a pretty tasseled thing which contained a touch of crimson such as was on his.
“I’d try this,” he counseled. “And I shall stand by and see how it works.”
“But you’re going to fish too?”
“No. I’ve discharged my filial duties. Your father has his trout.”
“Then we must get one for Aunt Philomela.”
“I must refrain. I’m under certain obligations.”
“Obligations?” she questioned.
“To my prize. To the king,” he answered waving his hand airily towards the gasping fish.
Acting upon this, he, to her wonder, packed up his rod, placed his trout in the basket, and took a comfortable seat a little to the right of her.
Truly the gods were with him. Had they not listened to his invocation? Otherwise he must have stood upon the bank and given over his whole thought to the matter of casting a bit of feather upon the waters. He could have studied the sky only as it was reflected in the stream, and only as much of her as he could catch from the corner of his eye. And always there would have been the danger of an entangling alliance between his hook and her gown with the consequent embarrassment of showing ill before her. He must have been born under Pisces.
Again and again she cast her line for Aunt Philomela without success. But what Aunt Philomela lost, he gained. He won a new memory of her at every strong-limbed movement. He prayed for failure. Surely, he thought, that estimable lady would cheerfully surrender the mere item of a delectable morsel or two for such pictures as these.
But Miss Van Patten herself did not relish the position as much as she might. She was conscious of being watched and this, unless a girl be vain, is not pleasant no matter how delicately the watching is done. So she slowly reeled in her line.
“Surely, you don’t mean to deprive Aunt Philomela of her fish?” he hastened to protest.
“I think she would rather have me finish her accounts,” she affirmed.
“If we tried a few moments longer—”
“I have noticed,” she declared, continuing to reel in her line, “that when at the beginning you land a big fish, the little fishes cease to bite.”
He felt guilty, as though he had been the means of depriving her of her sport. As she left the bank he took her pole and dismembered it for her, prolonging the task as long as possible. He wished now that he had not caught his fish so soon. The ideal way to fish with her, he thought, would be to have a trout concealed in one’s pocket and so with no responsibility dabble with the fly until the opportune moment for going home arrived and then deftly hook the fish upon the line and produce it. The pity of life was that no sooner had one prettily solved some problem by experience than the opportunity for using it was gone. It might well be that Mr. Van Patten would never have again so convenient a taste for trout.
Barnes was in hope that perhaps she might seat herself, if he were long enough about this business of packing up the rods, but she didn’t. She watched him with interest but with no other thought in mind than returning to the house as soon as he was ready. So with a little sigh, he finally tied the cloth case at the top in a knot that no human being could ever separate without the use of a knife.
“I never can untie that,” she protested.
“All you have to do,” he assured her with honest conviction, “is to pull the loop string.”
“Don’t you know how to make a real bow-knot?” she asked.
“Isn’t that a bow-knot?”
“A bow-knot has two loops and comes untied,” she informed him.
“I thought the object of a knot was to remain tied. Mine have at least that advantage.”
“But you want them to untie sometime.”
“You cut mine when you wish to undo them,” he explained.
“That is both wasteful and untidy. I will show you.”
Here was a lesson worth learning. He handed her the rod. She pulled gingerly at the string but only succeeded in fixing the knot more firmly than ever. She removed a pin from her hat and began to pick. It was a long process but it gave him time to admire the nimbleness of her fingers. The knot became loosened only too soon.
“There,” she exclaimed. “Now you take it so and you do like this.”
It was tied in the snap of a finger.
“Then, when you pull one end of either string, it becomes unfastened.”
She demonstrated. He took the rod and tried the same process clumsily. She came nearer and guided his fingers. He caught the perfume of her hair. It was like dying clover. He felt the electric thrill of her fingers. It only made him the clumsier.
“You will never learn,” she declared.
“I can always try.”
“You must practice by yourself.”
“I have done so for years.”
“Then,” she said, “you must never tie any but your own things.”
“Then,” he reflected, “anything that I wish to tie hard, I must first own.”
But he didn’t own the rod, so she tied that herself. As they rose to go Carl approached.
“Hello,” he called, “fishing?”
“No,” answered Barnes, “hunting.”