My new ally stood quietly on the bank, holding the gaff ready for the right moment. It came: a deft movement, a good pull together, and the great jack curled and bounced on the bank. "Over thirty pounds if he's an ounce!" I cried gleefully. "Well done, fisherman!" she said. "It was a splendid sight. I've watched you all along. When you jumped into the river, I thought you were going to drown yourself. You had been walking up and down in a most desperate and dejected fashion." The raillery gave me courage to look into her eyes. I wondered if they were black, but decided that they were not, since her hair was the colour of wheat when it is ripening for the sickle and the summer sun falls on it at eve. And I, who am six feet in my socks, had hardly to lower my eyes to look into hers. Her face was beautiful beyond all imagining of mine. I had conjured up visions of Dido enthralled of Aeneas, of Cleopatra bending Antony to her whim. But the conscious art of my day-dreams had wrought no such marvel as here I saw in very flesh before me. I felt as one who drinks deep of some rich and rare vintage, and wonders why the gods have blessed him so. And further, as small things jostle big things in the mind, I knew that this was the real queen that had dazzled Joe Braggs. "What do you call it?" she said, looking down at the fish. "A jack, or pike, madam." "'The tyrant of the watery plains,' as Mr. Pope calls him. You've heard of Mr. Pope, the poet?" She spoke as if 'No' was the inevitable answer. "Strictly speaking, no, madam," said I gravely, "but I have read his so-called poems." She frowned. "Horace calls the jack," I continued, "_lupus_, the wolf-fish, as one may say, and a very good name too. Doubtless madam has heard of Horace." My quip brought a glint into her eyes and a richer colour to her cheek. "Yes, heard of him," she said, with a trace of chagrin in her voice. "And now, O Nimrod of the watery plains, how far is it to the village smithy?" "Just under a mile, madam." "And how long does it take to shoe a horse?" "How many shoes, madam?" Again the glint in her eyes, and this time I saw some of the blue in them. "One, sir," she said shortly. "Ten to fifteen minutes, madam." "He's a very long time," she said under her breath. "The smith is probably very busy to-day." "Busy! Why so?" "The dragoons may have found him much work," said I, merely my way of explaining the delay. But the words stabbed her. She laid a hand on my arm and cried gaspingly, "Dragoons! What do you mean? Quick!" "The Duke of Cumberland is marching north from Lichfield against the Stuart, and Lord Brocton's dragoons are in the village."