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"Yes, with fish," remarked the gratified old man, as he went through the motions of loading and firing to perfection. "Now, then, I will load it thus. Watch me." As he spoke, he filled the chamber under the barrel with cartridge after cartridge to the amazement of MacRummle and the amusement of Quin, who looked on. "How many shots will it fire without reloading?" asked the old man at length.
MacRummle came in last, and they had some difficulty in getting him out of the water, for he was rather sluggish, as well as heavy; but he was none the worse for his immersion, and to the anxieties afterwards expressed by his friends, he replied quietly that he had become pretty well used to the water by that time.
"Just so, Quin; and as MacRummle knows the hill, and has to pass the place where Mr Jackman has been left, you had better follow him." This arranged, the different parties took up their positions to await the result of the beating of a strip of dwarf forest, several miles in extent, which clothed part of the mountain slopes below the Eagle Cliff.
It was the habit of MacRummle, being half blind, to supplement his vision with that peculiar kind of glasses which support or refuse to support themselves on the human countenance by means of the nose.
The buckets were passed in uninterrupted succession from the pond to the house, where Mabberly received them at the front door, that being deemed the point where danger and the need for unusual energy began. He passed them in through the smoke of the hall to MacRummle, who handed them to Roderick and the butler.
Meanwhile, the bull, having made up its mind, came charging down the field with its eyes flashing and its tail on high. MacRummle looked back. He saw that the case was hopeless. He was already exhausted and gasping. A young man could scarcely have reached the wall in time. Suddenly he came to a ditch, one of those narrow open drains with which inhabitants of wet countries are familiar.
"I hope he's not hurt," replied Junkie, raising his head cautiously. He saw that MacRummle had risen, and, with a rueful expression of face, was making insane and futile efforts to look at himself behind. A beaming smile overspread the boy's face as he glanced at his companion, for he knew well that the old gentleman cared little or nothing for water.
"Didn't I bid ye hau'd your tongue?" "Ay." "Do't then." MacRummle dropped a worm gently into the head of the pool, and let it go with the current. Instantly the line straightened, the rod bent, the reel spun, and from the other side of the pool there leaped a lovely bar of silver, which fell back to its native element with a considerable splash.
Ay, and correctly estimated, too, according to these different standpoints; for the old man saw only the sunny surrounding of the Present, while the young one gazed into the gloomy wreck of the Future. Being somewhat fatigued, MacRummle betook himself to a sequestered ledge among the cliffs, and sat down under a shrub to rest. It chanced to be a well concealed spot.
It was finally arranged, before breakfast was over, that MacRummle was to go off alone to his usual and favourite burn; that Jackman and Quin, under the guidance of Junkie, should try the river for salmon and sea-trout; that Barret, with ex-Skipper McPherson, Shames McGregor, Robin Tips, Eddie Gordon, the laird's second son a boy of twelve and Ivor, the keeper whose recoveries were as rapid as his relapses were sudden should all go off in the boat to try the sea-fishing; and that Bob Mabberly, with Archie, should go photographing up one of the most picturesque of the glens, conducted by the laird himself.
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