They were far from the end yet, however. The long rush and the splashing had exhausted him for a while; and the fisherman, with a firm application of the butt, thought he could make the fish show himself; but still he kept boring steadily down, sometimes making little angry rushes of a dozen yards or so. And then all of a sudden began some wild cantrips. There was another rush of ten or a dozen yards; and a clear leap into the air—a beautiful, great, silvery creature he looked amid all this hurrying gloom; and then another downward rush; and then he came to the surface again, and shook and tugged and struck with his tail until the water was foaming white about him. These were a few terribly anxious seconds, but all went happily by, and then it was felt that the worst of the fighting was over. After that there was but the sullen refusal to come near the boat—the short sheering off whenever he saw it or one of the oars; but now, in the slow curves through the water, he was beginning to show the gleam of his side; and Ronald was crouching down in the stern, gaff in hand. ’Steady, sir, steady,’ he was saying, with his eye on those slow circles; ’give him time, he’s no done yet; a heavy fish, sir—a good fish that—twenty pounds, I’m thinking—come along, my beauty, come along—_the butt now, sir!_’ And then, as the great gleaming fish, head up, came sheering along on its side, there was a quick dive of the steel clip, and the next second the splendid creature was in the bottom of the coble. Mr. Hodson sank down on to his seat; it had been a long fight—over half an hour; he was exhausted with the strain of keeping himself balanced; and he was also (what he had not perceived in this long spell of excitement) wet to the skin. He pulled out a spirit-flask from the pocket of his waterproof—as ill-luck would have it, that useful garment happened to be lying in the bottom of the boat when the fight began—and gave the two men a liberal dram; he then took a sip himself; and when there had been a general quarrel over the size of the fish—nineteen the lowest, twenty-two the highest guess—they began to consider what they ought to do next. The weather looked very ugly. It was resolved to get up to the head of the loch anyhow, and there decide; and so the men took to their oars again, and began to force their way through the heavy and white-crested waves. But long ere they had reached the head of the loch Mr. Hodson had become aware of a cold feeling about his shoulders and back, and quickly enough he came to the conclusion that sitting in an open boat, with clothes wet through, on a January day, did not promise sufficient happiness. He said they might put him ashore as soon as possible. ’Indeed, sir, it’s no much use going on in this weather,’ Ronald said, ’unless maybe you were to try the fly.’ ’I thought you said it was rather early for the fly.’ ’Rayther early,’ Ronald admitted. ’Rawther,’ said Duncan.