LITMIR.BIZ

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      But now his tactics were different. So soon as the fly had floated past where he believed the fish to be, he sank it with a dexterous twist of the rod-point, possible only with a short line. The fly was no longer a winged thing; drawn away under water, it roused in the salmon early memories of succulent nymphs…At the first cast there was a slight swirl, which meant that a fish near the surface had turned to follow the lure. The second cast the line straightened and moved swiftly up-stream.

      Leithen had killed in his day many hundreds of salmon—once in Norway a notable beast of fifty-five pounds. But no salmon he had ever hooked had stirred in his breast such excitement as this modest fellow of eight pounds. “‘Tis not so wide as a church-door,’” he reflected with Mercutio, “‘but ‘twill suffice’—if I can only land him.” But a dry-fly cast and a ten-foot rod are a frail wherewithal for killing a fish against time. With his ordinary fifteen-footer and gut of moderate strength he could have brought the little salmon to grass in five minutes, but now there was immense risk of a break, and a break would mean that the whole enterprise had failed. He dared not exert pressure; on the other hand, he could not follow the fish except by making himself conspicuous on the greensward. Worst of all, he had at the best ten minutes for the job.

      Thirty yards off an otter slid into the water. Leithen wished he was King of the Otters, as in the Highland tale, to summon the brute to his aid.

      The ten minutes had lengthened to fifteen—nine hundred seconds of heart-disease—when, wet to the waist, he got his pocket-gaff into the salmon’s side and drew it on to the spit of gravel where he had started fishing. A dozen times he thought he had lost, and once when the fish ran straight up the pool his line was carried out to its last yard of backing. He gave thanks to high Heaven, when, as he landed it, he observed that the fly had all but lost its hold and in another minute would have been free. By such narrow margins are great deeds accomplished.

      He snapped the cast from the line and buried it in mud. Then cautiously he raised his head above the bank. The gloaming was gathering fast, and so far as he could see the haugh was still empty. Pushing his rod along the ground, he scrambled on to the turf.

      There he had a grievous shock. Jimsie had reappeared, and he was in full view of him. Moreover, there were two men on bicycles coming up the road, who, with the deplorable instinct of human nature, would be certain to join in any pursuit. He was on turf as short as a lawn, cumbered with a tell-tale rod and a poached salmon. The friendly hags were a dozen yards off, and before he could reach them his damning baggage would be noted.

      At this supreme moment he had an inspiration, derived from the memory of the otter. To get out his knife, cut a ragged wedge from the fish, and roll it in his handkerchief was the work of five seconds. To tilt the rod over the bank so that it lay in the deep shadow was the work of three more…Jimsie had seen him, for a wild cry came down the stream, a cry which brought the cyclists off their machines and set them staring in his direction. Leithen dropped his gaff after the rod, and began running towards the Larrig bridge—slowly, limpingly, like a frightened man with no resolute purpose of escape. And as he ran he prayed that Benjie from the deeps of the moss had seen what had been done and drawn the proper inference.

      It was a bold bluff, for he had decided to make the salmon evidence for, not against him. He hobbled down the bank, looking over his shoulder often as if in terror, and almost ran into the arms of the cyclists, who, warned by Jimsie’s yells, were waiting to intercept him. He dodged them, however, and cut across to the road, for he had seen that Jimsie had paused and had noted the salmon lying blatantly on the sward, a silver splash in the twilight. Leithen doubled up the road as if going towards Strathlarrig, and Jimsie, the fleet of foot, did not catch up with him till almost on the edge of the Wood of Larrigmore. The cyclists, who had remounted, arrived at the same moment to find a wretched muddy tramp in the grip of a stalwart but breathless gillie.

      “I tell ye I was daein’ nae harm,’ the tramp whined. “I was walkin’ up the water-side—there’s nae law to keep a body frae walkin’ up a water-side when there’s nae fence—and I seen an auld otter killin’ a saumon. The fish is there still to prove I’m no leein’.”

      “There is a fush, but you wass thinkin’ to steal the fush, and you would have had it in your breeks if I hadna seen you. That is poachin’ ma man, and you will come up to Strathlarrig. The master said that anyone goin’ near the watter was to be lockit up, and you will be lockit up. You can tell all the lees you like in the mornin’.”

      Then a thought struck Jimsie. He wanted the salmon, for the subject of otters in the Larrig had been a matter of dispute between him and Angus, and here was evidence for his own view.

      “Would you two gentlemen oblige me by watchin’ this man while I rin back and get the fush? Bash him on the head if he offers to rin.”

      The cyclists, who were journalists out to enjoy the evening air, willingly agreed, but Leithen showed no wish to escape. He begged a fag in a beggar’s whine, and, since he seemed peaceable, the two kept a good distance for fear of infection. He stood making damp streaks in the dusty road, a pitiable specimen of humanity, for his original get-up was not improved by the liquefaction of his clothes and a generous legacy of slimy peat. He seemed to be nervous, which indeed he was, for if Benjie had not seized his chance he was utterly done, and if Jimsie should light upon his rod he was gravely compromised.

      But when Jimsie returned in a matter of ten minutes he was empty-handed.

      “I never kenned the like,” he proclaimed. “That otter has come back and gotten the fush. Ach, the maleecious brute!”

      The rest of Leithen’s progress was not triumphant. He was conducted to the Strathlarrig lodge, where Angus, whose temper and wind had alike been ruined by the pursuit of Crossby, laid savage hands upon him, and frog-marched him to the back premises. The head-keeper scarcely heeded Jimsie’s tale. “Ach, ye poachin’ va-aga-bond. It is the jyle ye’ll get,” he roared, for Angus was in a mood which could only be relieved by violence of speech and action. Rumbling Gaelic imprecations, he hustled his prisoner into an outhouse, which had once been a larder and was now a supplementary garage, slammed and locked the door, and, as a final warning, kicked it viciously with his foot, as if to signify what awaited the culprit when the time came to sit on his case.

      Sir Archie, if not a skeleton at the feast, was no better than a shadow. The fragment of drama which he had witnessed had rudely divorced his mind from the intelligent conversation of Mr Bandicott, he was no longer slightly irritated by Mr Claybody, he forgot even the attractions of Janet. What was going on in that twilit vale? Lady Maisie’s Pool had still a shimmer of gold, but the woods were now purple and the waterside turf a dim amethyst, the colour of the darkening sky. All sound had ceased except the rare cry of a bird from the hill, and the hoot of a wandering owl…Crossby had beyond doubt been taken, but where was Leithen?

      He was recalled to his surroundings by Janet’s announcement that Mr Bandicott proposed to take them all in his car to the meeting at Muirtown.

      “Oh, I say,” he pleaded, “I’d much rather you didn’t. I haven’t a notion how to speak—no experience, you see—only about the third time I’ve opened my mouth in public. I’ll make an awful ass of myself, and I’d much rather my friends didn’t see it. If I know you’re in the audience, Miss Janet, I won’t be able to get a word out.”

      Mr Bandicott was sympathetic. “Take my advice, and do not attempt to write a speech and learn it by heart. Fill yourself with your subject, but do not prepare anything except the first sentence and the last. You’ll find the words come easily when you once begin—if you have something you really want to say.”

      “That’s the trouble—I haven’t. I’m goin’ to speak about foreign policy, and I’m dashed if I can remember which treaty is which, and what the French are making a fuss about, or why the old Boche can’t pay. And I keep on mixing up Poincaré and Mussolini…I’m goin to write it all down, and if I’m stuck I’ll fish out the paper and read it. I’m told there are fellows in the Cabinet who do that when they’re cornered.

      “Don’t stick too close to the paper,” the Colonel advised.

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