But here in the open Miss Honnor had regained her
confidence and usual composure; and in the end the continuous pressure
of the green-heart top was too much for him; he began to yield--fiercely
fighting now and again to get away, to be sure; but the climax was a
sudden flash of Robert's steel clip, and a heavy-shouldered
fifteen-pounder was out on the stones. Old Robert, smiling grimly at the
success of his young mistress, but saying nothing, had to "wet" the fish
all by himself; for Miss Honnor's drink was water; and as for Lionel,
his throat was too valuable and sensitive a possession to be treated to
raw spirits at that time of the morning. Then, that ceremony being over,
they deposited the salmon in a hole in the bank, to be picked up on
their homeward journey, and forthwith set out again, up the valley of
the Geinig.
Their surroundings were now becoming more wild and lonely--this, in
fact, being the route by which Lionel had travelled the day before when
he was after the deer. Down in the glen, it is true, everything was
pretty enough--the silver-gray rocks, the rushing brown water, the banks
hanging with birches; but far away on those upland heights there was
nothing but the monotonous deep purple of the heather, broken here and
there, perhaps, by a dark-green pine; and beyond those heights again
rose the rounded tops and shoulders of the distant cloud-stained hills.
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