Short stories and selections for use in the secondary schools
General
Short stories and selections for use in the secondary schools
English prose literature; Readers; Short stories
He was under for a quarter of a minute; when he rose he had
the line in his hand between the fish and the tree.
"All right," he sputtered, swimming with the other hand to the bank and
scrambling up. "Run the rest of the line off the reel and out through
the rings." He had divined by a brilliant instinct the only remedy for
our situation. The thing was done, fast as Pat and I could ply our
fingers. The loose end was drawn round the log, and while Jack was
humoring the fish with his hand, and dancing up and down the bank
regardless of proprieties, we had carried it back down the rings,
replaced it on the reel, wound in the slack, and had again command of
the situation.
The salmon had played his best stroke. It had failed him, and he now
surrendered like a gentleman. A mean-spirited fish will go to the
bottom, bury himself in the weed, and sulk. Ours set his head towards
the sea, and sailed down the length of the pool in the open water
without attempting any more plunges. As his strength failed, he turned
heavily on his back, and allowed himself to be drawn to the shore. The
gaff [Footnote: Gaff: a large hook fixed on the end of a pole or
handle.] was in his side and he was ours. He was larger than we had
guessed him. Clean run he would have weighed twenty-five pounds. The
fresh water had reduced him to twenty-two, but without softening his
muscle or touching his strength.
--JAMES FROUDE (adapted).
[Footnote: Is the first part of the narrative a typical story of
"fisherman's luck"? Show how the story illustrates that a real lover of
fishing is enthusiastic over every detail of his experience. Is the
story technical at the expense of the reader's interest? How does the
element of suspense add to the interest? Is the account more interesting
by being told in the first person? Why?]
ACROSS RUNNING WATER
At a running water, that comes out at a place called Srath-namara, near
the sea-gates of Loch Suibhne, there is a pool called the Pool of the
Changeling. None ever goes that way from choice, for only the crying of
the curlew is heard there, or the querulous wailing lapwing.
It was here that one night, in a September of many storms, a woman stood
staring at the sea. The screaming seamews [Footnote: Seamews: gulls.]
wheeled and sank and circled overhead, and the solanders [Footnote:
Solanders: a kind of wild geese.] rose with heavy wing and hoarse cries,
and the black scarts screeched to the startled guillemots [Footnote:
Guillemots: birds similar to the auks.] or to the foam-white terns
[Footnote: Terns: a species of birds allied to the gulls.] blown before
the wind like froth. The woman looked neither at the seafowl nor at the
burning glens of scarlet flame which stretched dishevelled among the
ruined lands of the sunset.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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