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Or would you like to know what any ordinary man of the world would think of the whole case?" "Don't give me your advice, Ogilvie," said he, untwining and throwing away the bit of casting-line that had cut his finger. "It is far beyond that. Let me talk to you that is all. I should have gone mad in another week, if I had had no one to speak to; and as it is, what better am I than mad?
You should have seen the game that began then old Robert and Honnor trying to get hold of the stot, so as to take the casting-line and the fly from its mane it isn't a mane, but you know and the stot trying to butt them whenever they came near.
Some of them were nearly two pounds; and although I had a strong casting-line, they were often most difficult to land, for a series of small cataracts dashed down amongst huge rocks and slippery boulders, until, a hundred feet below, the calm, deep Macomber pool was reached.
Then her enemy seemed inclined to yield a little; she reeled in still more quickly; knot after knot of the casting-line gradually rose from the surface; at last they caught sight of a dull, bronze gleam the sunlight striking through the brown water on the side of the fish. But he had no intention of giving in yet; he had only come up to look about him.
He was not towing the boat, of course; for only an ignoramus imagines that a salmon can "tow" a boat, when the casting-line that holds him is a single strand of gut that will break under a strain of ten pounds. He was running away, and the canoe was chasing him through the roaring torrent.
Get behind the casting-line about half-way down the fish get well over him and then a sharp, bold stroke will fetch him out." Accordingly, armed with the gaff, Lionel made his way down to the lowest ridge of the rock, so that he found himself just over the black-brown pool.
He next puts the knots of the casting-line through a severe trial; replaces an unsound joint with a fresh link of gut, and finally produces out of his hat a "hook" he will not call it a fly of his own dressing.
Looking back I saw a trout well over a pound flying across the lilies; but alas! the hold was not strong enough, and he fell back. Again and again I tried this method, invariably hooking the trout, though the heavy short casting-line and the big fly fell very awkwardly in the dead stillness of the water.
On that stick, strange to say, was entangled my old gut casting-line, and at the end of the line was an eel of two pounds' weight! On cutting him open, there, sure enough, was the identical clipped salmon fly; it had been inside that eel for three weeks without hurting him. This sounds like a regular angler's yarn, and nobody need believe it unless he likes; nevertheless, it is perfectly true.
Pull at it till the casting-line breaks; put on a fresh one, and to work again. There! you have him. Don't rise! fight him kneeling; hold him hard, and give him no line, but shorten up anyhow. Tear and haul him down to you before he can make to his home, while the keeper runs round with the net . . . There, he is on shore. Two pounds, good weight.
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