The Lilac Sunbonnet: A Love StoryCrockett, S. R. (Samuel Rutherford)
General
The Lilac Sunbonnet: A Love Story
Crockett, S. R. (Samuel Rutherford)
Fiction; Love stories
"I'se no gaun a fit till I hae showed ye baith what it is to
guddle. For ye mauna gang awa' to Embro" [elbow contemptuous to
the north, where Andra supposed Edinburgh to lie immediately on
the other side of the double-breasted swell of blue Cairnsmuir of
Carsphairn], "an' think that howkin' (wi' a lassie to help ye) in
among the gravel is guddlin'. You see here!" cried Andra, and
before either Winsome or Ralph could say a word, he had stripped
himself to his very brief breeches and ragged shirt, and was
wading into the deepest part of the pool beneath the water-fall.
Here he scurried and scuttled for all the world like a dipper,
with his breast showing white like that of the bird, as he walked
along the bottom of the pool. Most of the time his head was
beneath the water, as well as all the rest of his body. His arms
bored their way round the intricacies of the boulders at the
bottom. His brown and freckled hands pursued the trouts beneath
the banks. Sometimes he would have one in each hand at the same
time.
When he caught them he had a careless and reckless way of throwing
them up on the bank without looking where he was throwing. The
first one he threw in this way took effect on the cheek of Ralph
Peden, to his exceeding astonishment.
Winsome again cried "Andra!" warningly, but Andra was far too busy
to listen; besides, it is not easy to hear with one's head under
water and the frightened trout flashing in lightning wimples
athwart the pool.
But for all that, the fisherman's senses were acute, even under
the water; for as Winsome and Ralph were not very energetic in
catching the lively speckled beauties which found themselves so
unexpectedly frisking upon the green grass, one or two of them
(putting apparently their tails into their mouths, and letting go,
as with the release of a steel spring) turned a splashing
somersault into the pool. Andra did not seem to notice them as
they fell, but in a little while he looked up with a trout in his
hand, the peat-water running in bucketfuls from his hair and
shirt, his face full of indignation.
"Ye're lettin' them back again!" he exclaimed, looking fiercely at
the trout in his hand. "This is the second time I hae catched this
yin wi' the wart on its tail!" he said. "D'ye think I'm catchin'
them for fun, or to gie them a change o' air for their healths,
like fine fowk that come frae Embro'!"
"Andra, I will not allow--" Winsome began, who felt that on the
ground of Craig Ronald a guest of her grandmother's should be
respected.
But before she had got further Andra was again under the water,
and again the trout began to rain out, taking occasional local
effect upon both of them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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