"Keeping up those friendly relations, or apparently friendly relations, with this fellow Ross," Fred Stanley said. "Wouldn’t it be very much better, much honester, if we were declared enemies—as the people about here think we are? Then we could give fair notice to the keepers that they must either have him watched or they themselves must go. You see, my sister doesn’t care what happens to the fishing or the shooting; but it is a shame she should be imposed upon; and a still greater shame that this fellow should come to the house, and pretend to be on friendly terms with her. You know, Frank, he must be a thundering hypocrite. Do you mean to tell me he has forgiven any one of our family for what my uncle did—you know what Mamie told you—draining the loch and pulling down the old castle? Of course he hasn’t! And perhaps I don’t blame him: it was too bad; and that’s a fact. But what I do blame him for is pretending to be on good terms; coming to the house; and so taking it out of our power to treat him as he ought to be treated—that is, as a person who is defying the law, whom we ought to try to catch. You see, Mamie is so soft; she hasn’t that dimple in her cheek for nothing; she’s far too good-natured; and this stuck-up Spaniard, or Portuguese, or whatever he is, seems to have impressed her because he looks mysterious and says nothing. Or perhaps she thinks that we have ill-treated him—that my uncle has, I mean. Or perhaps she hopes that through him she will get at those ill-conditioned brutes about here—you heard what Purdie said. I don’t know; I can’t make out women; they’re not sufficiently aboveboard for the humble likes of me; but this I do know, that I should like to catch that fellow Ross red-handed, carrying a salmon or a brace of grouse, and then we should have it out!" Frank Meredyth did not reply to this resentful little oration: he had been watching the westering sun, that was now slowly sinking behind the topmost trees of the steep bank on the other side of the river. And at length, when there was no longer a golden flash on the tea-brown ripples that came dancing over the shingle, he went down to the edge of the stream and began to cast, throwing a very fair line. But he was not very serious about it; in this rapid run there was little chance of anything beyond a sea-trout; he had his eye on a deeper, and smoother, and likelier pool lower down, where perchance there might be a lively young grilse lying, up that morning from the sea. Then he called out— "Come along, Fred, and take the next pool: it amuses me quite as much to look on." "It amuses me more," the younger man said, taking out another cigarette. "You’re throwing a beautiful line—go ahead—you’ll come upon something down there."