As I have said, in a little time she had acquired some considerable skill, and moved as gracefully as though she had learned it from her childhood, while I whistled bars of an old dancing tune. She had a little maid who attended her,--Eff she called her,--and the girl stood by to watch while Anne did my bidding. Then when we were all wearied of the sport, I fell to thinking of some other play, and could find none. 'Twas as dull as ditch-water, till the child Eff, by a good chance, spoke of fishing. She could get her father's rod and hooks, she said, for he never used them now; and I might try my luck in the Lin Water. There were good trout there, it seemed, and the choice time of taking them was in the autumn floods. Now I have ever been something of a fisherman, for many an hour have I spent by the big fish pond at Rohaine. So I got the tackle of Eff's father--rude enough it was in all conscience--and in the early afternoon I set out to the sport. Below the house and beyond the wood the Lin foams in a deep gully, falling over horrid cascades into great churning pools, or diving beneath the narrow rocks. But above the ravine there is a sudden change. The stream flows equably through a flat moor in sedgy deeps and bright shimmering streams. Thither I purposed to go, for I am no lover of the awesome black caldrons, which call to a man's mind visions of drowned bodies and pits which have no ending. On the moor with the wind blowing about one 'twas a pleasure to be, but faugh! no multitude of fish was worth an hour in that dismal chasm. I had not great success, and little wonder, for my leisurely ways were ill suited for the alert mountain fish. My time was spent in meditating on many things, but most of all on the strange case in which I found myself. For in truth my position was an odd one as ever man was in. Here was I bound by my word of honor to bide in the house and protect its inmates till that indefinite time when its master might return. There was no fear of money, for the minister had come of a good stock, and had more gear than is usual with one of his class. But 'twas an evil thing to look forward to--to spend my days in a lonely manse, and wait the end of a persecution which showed no signs of ending.