Pip made no reply, but gazed upon her. In matters of this kind he was not very "quick in the uptake," as they say in Scotland. Elsie made a curious little grimace to herself, and continued-- "Pip, supposing you wanted, _very_ much, to get something that lay across a stream which looked rather deep, would you make a jump and risk a ducking, or would you walk miles on the off-chance of finding a bridge?" They looked at each other steadily for a minute, while Pip worked out the answer to this conundrum. "I should probably jump," he replied,--"that is, if--" And then at last light seemed to break upon him. The blood surged to his brain, and he stepped forward impetuously. "Elsie!" he cried. But the door was shut. * * * * * "Serve him right, too!" you say. Well, perhaps; but lack of presumption is a rare and not unmanly virtue. CHAPTER XI "_NATURAM FURCA EXPELLAS ..._" ALAS! When Pip slipped out of bed at six o'clock next morning the window-panes were blurred and wet, and the Links of Eric were shrouded in driving sheets of rain. His pithy and apposite comments on the situation were, had he only known it, being reproduced (in an expurgated form) by a damsel in a kimono at a bedroom window not far down the road. Elsie surveyed the rain-washed links reflectively, and sighed. "What a pity!" she said to herself. "I would have given him such a lesson! Now I suppose we shall both waste a day." With which enigmatical conclusion she crept into bed again. Pip arrived at Knocknaha after breakfast, but Elsie flatly refused to stir outside until the rain had ceased. This was no more than her swain had expected, and he returned resignedly to the hotel, where he passed an exceedingly unprofitable morning smoking and playing billiards. After luncheon an ancient mariner in a blue jersey and a high-crowned bowler hat approached him on the hotel veranda and intimated that the day was a good one for deep-sea fishing. It was certainly no day for courting, and Pip, weary in spirit, was fain to accept the implied invitation. They walked to the beach together, and began to haul down the old man's boat. This done, the oars and tackle were put in, and the expedition was on the point of departure when Pip suddenly realised that it had stopped raining. "Hallo!" he said. "Rain over?" "Aye," remarked the old man; "it will be a grand afternoon yet." Pip turned upon him suddenly. "Are you sure?" he asked. "Aye." "Certain?" "'Deed aye," replied the old gentleman rather testily. "When the top of yon ben is uncovered like so, and the wind--" "In that case," remarked his employer suddenly, "I can't come fishing, I'm afraid. I must go and--do something else. Another day, perhaps." And handing the scandalised mariner half-a-crown, he departed over the sand-hills at a rate which would certainly have brought about his disqualification in any decently conducted walking-race.