She recognized that I had climbed high in a single day, leaving the rounds of childhood behind forever; and she knew, too, which I did not, that she also was climbing the ladder very swiftly, a little behind me now, yet confident, and meaning to rejoin and pass me ere I dreamed of such a thing.
About this time Sir William hooked and landed a great pink and white Mohawk chub, which had risen silently from a black pool and had sucked in his feather-fly.
"Tush!" said Sir William. "I'll not count that!" And with a slack and a snip! he unhooked the fish, which at once slowly sank back into the black channel. Whereupon Sir William smoothed out his fly, and took snuff, singing merrily:
"You bade _us_ make no noise, sir," spoke up Esk, reproachfully.
"So I did, lad! So I did! But not with thy mouth. Shout all day, and never a trout budges. Stamp thy feet--ay, brush but a stone in passing, and it's farewell, master troutling! Ho! What was that?"
A spattering and splashing arose from Peter's peg, and all turned to see the fat little Mohawk dragging a trout from the water and up the bank, where he fell upon the bouncing fish, whooping like the savage he was.
"Clearly," mused Sir William, "my eye has lost its cunning, and my arm its strength. So passes the generation that was born with me! Heigh-ho! Well done, Peter boy!"
Silver Heels was doomed to ill-fortune. She lost a second frost-fish, and was ready to weep. So I laid my rod on the bank, leaving the baited hook in the water, and went over to her, for she seemed discouraged, having broken her hook and quill.
"Fen dubs!" shouted Peter, from the other end of the line. "You can't do that, Michael! I'm ahead of you all, and it is not fair!"
"Mind your business," said I, sitting down beside Silver Heels; and truly enough he did, for, before I was seated, Peter jumped up, struggling with a fat white perch, which he landed, yelling and dancing in his vanity.
"Never you mind, Silver Heels," said I, tying a plated hook on her line, and covering it with a long silvery strip of skin and pin-feathers from a pullet's neck. "Now do as I say; toss the bait down stream, so! Now draw it slowly till it spins like a top."
Ere I could end my instructions I saw the nose of a great gold-green pike close after her bait.