“Well, now you’re going to have the horses, little as you both deserve ’em,” said Wally; “and now, perhaps, you’ll all apologize humbly for calling me unpleasant names!” “Certainly not,” Jim said, firmly. “If you didn’t deserve them at the moment (and I’m not sure that you didn’t), you’re sure to deserve them before long. Never mind, look at this!” He opened his fishing-basket carefully and showed a mass of damp grass, among which could be seen glimpses of many trout. Jim dived in with his finger and thumb, and drew out a speckled beauty, which he dangled before Wally’s envious gaze. “A pound and a half, by my patent spring-balance!” he declared, triumphantly. “I played him for what seemed like three hours, and I never was so scared of anything in my life. He got tired at last, however, and Norah officiated with the landing-net.” “Yes, and missed him twice,” said Norah, shame-faced. “It was the greatest wonder he didn’t get off. But a big trout on the end of a little line does wobble so much when it’s coming towards the net. It’s much worse than a screwing ball at tennis.” “I know—and you feel perfectly certain the line is going to break, if the rod doesn’t,” Wally said. “I feel like that over a quarter-pounder: I don’t know how you ever managed to make a collected effort for that big fellow.” “It wasn’t collected at all—I just swiped wildly, and got him by the sheerest good luck,” Norah answered. “I mean to practise with a cricket ball on a string, hung from the big tree outside my window: it would be awful to miss another beauty like that.” They were drifting down the little lough very slowly. There were purple shadows under the hills, lying across the strip of bog that stretched westward, where the curlew and golden plover were calling. A little breeze sprang up, just rippling the surface of the water. Wally got out his rod hastily; but though the conditions seemed ideal, the trout had apparently gone to sleep, and when an hour’s casting had not yielded so much as a rise, it was decided that there might be better things than fishing, and the party returned to the shore. A small boy, lurking about the landing stage, was entrusted with the rods and baskets, and disappeared slowly among the trees fringing the path that led to the hotel. “What are we going to do?” Jim asked. “I’m going to Gortbeg,” Norah said. “I want some pins.” “Pins?” Jim echoed. “Why ever must you walk two miles for pins? I’m sure you don’t use one in a year.” “No, and so I haven’t got any,” Norah said. “And I must have some, because I want to shorten my bog-lepping skirt, and I can’t turn up the edge without pins to keep it in place.” “But you sew that sort of thing, don’t you?” Jim asked, wrestling with masculine obtuseness. “Of course—after you’ve pinned it in place. Jimmy, you had better let me attack that skirt in my own way!” said Norah, justly incensed. “If you’d tried climbing a mountain in a too-long skirt you wouldn’t argue about making it shorter.”