Her voice was clear, and no doubt carried a considerable distance in this perfect silence. Immediately after she had spoken there were two or three further series of those flashing rings—nearing the opposite bank: then darkness again, and stillness; the spectral fisherman, whoever he was, had vanished into the thick birchwood. But Mary Stanley made no doubt as to who this was. "Now I understand," she said, bitterly, as she and her companion set out for home again, "why the salmon-fishing isn’t worth £30 a month to me—when it does not belong to me! And now I understand what Mr. Purdie said about the poaching—and the connivance of everybody around. And yet I suppose Mr. Ross of Heimra calls himself a gentleman? I suppose he would not like to be called a thief? Well, I call him a thief! I call poaching thieving—and nothing but thieving—whatever the people about here may think. And I say it is not the conduct of a gentleman." She was very angry and indignant; and the moment she got back to Lochgarra House she sent for the head-keeper. In a few minutes the tall and bushy-bearded Hector presented himself at the door of the room, cap in hand a handsome man he was, with a grave and serious face. "Is any one allowed to fish in that river who pleases?" she demanded. "I was not aware of any one fishing, ma’am," said the keeper, very respectfully. "But is there no one watching?" she demanded, again. "Can any poacher who chooses have the run of the stream? Does it belong to everybody? Is it common property? Because—because I merely wish to know." She was somewhat perturbed and excited; she did not think she was being dealt with justly; and she saw in the grave and reticent manner of the head-keeper only an intention of screening the culprit whom she herself had by accident detected a little while before. "The fishing in the Garra is not very good in the spring," said the weather-browned Hector, "and we were not thinking it was much use to have a water-bailiff whatever." "But surely it is your business to see that no poaching goes on, either on the river or anywhere else? Surely that is your duty? And if there were no fishing, would anyone fish?—you may trust a poacher to know! I’m sure," she went on, with something of a hurt manner, "it is very little I ask. I only want to be treated fairly. I am trying to do my best for every one in the place—I wish to do what is right by every one. But then I want to be treated fairly in return. And poaching is not fair; nor do I think it fair that you, as a keeper, should make excuses for it, or try to screen anyone, whoever he may be." The man’s face became rather pale—even under the weather tan. "If Miss Stanley would be wanting to get another gamekeeper," he said, slowly and respectfully, "I would not be asking to stay."