"They do get a good deal more for their money than I thought they did,"
said I; "but I wonder if those rich sportsmen ever think that if they
would take the money that they pay for shooting thirty or forty stags
in one season, they might buy a rhinoceros, which they could set up on
a hill and shoot at every morning if they liked. A game animal like
that would last them for years, and if they ever felt like it, they
could ask their friends to help them shoot without costing them
anything."
Jone is pretty hard on sport with killing in it. He does not mind
eating meat, but he likes to have the butcher do the killing. But I
reckon he is a little too tender-hearted. But, as for me, I like sport
of some kinds, especially when you don't have your pity or your
sympathies awakened by seeing your prey enjoying life when you are
seeking to encompass his end. Of course, by that I mean fishing.
There are a good many trout in the lake, and people can hire the
privilege of fishing for them; and I begged Jone to let me go out in a
boat and fish. He was rather in favor of staying ashore and fishing in
the little river, but I didn't want to do that. I wanted to go out and
have some regular lake fishing. At last Jone agreed, provided I would
not expect him to have anything to do with the fishing. "Of course I
don't expect anything like that," said I; "and it would be a good deal
better for you to stay on shore. The landlord says a gilly will go
along to row the boat and attend to the lines and rods and all that,
and so there won't be any need for you at all, and you can stay on
shore with your book, and watch if you like."
"And suppose you tumble overboard," said Jone.
"Then you can swim out," I said, "and perhaps wade a good deal of the
way. I don't suppose we need go far from the bank."
Jone laughed, and said he was going too.
"Very well," said I; "but you have got to stay in the bow, with your
back to me, and take an interesting book with you, for it is a long
time since I have done any fishing, and I am not going to do it with
two men watching me and telling me how I ought to do it and how I
oughtn't to. One will be enough."
"And that one won't be me," said Jone, "for fishing is not one of the
branches I teach in my school."
I would have liked it better if Jone and me had gone alone, he doing
nothing but row; but the landlord wouldn't let his boat that way, and
said we must take a gilly, which, as far as I can make out, is a sort
of sporting farmhand. That is the way to do fishing in these parts.
Well, we started, and Jone sat in the front, with his back to me, and
the long-legged gilly rowed like a good fellow. When we got to a good
place to fish he stopped, and took a fishing-rod that was in pieces and
screwed them together, and fixed the line all right so that it would
run along the rod to a little wheel near the handle, and then he put on
a couple of hooks with artificial flies on them, which was so small I
couldn't imagine how the fish could see them. While he was doing all
this I got a little fidgety, because I had never fished except with a
straight pole and line with a cork to it, which would bob when the fish
bit; but this was altogether a different sort of a thing. When it was
all ready he handed me the pole, and then sat down very polite to look
at me.
Now, if he had handed me the rod, and then taken another boat and gone
home, perhaps I might have known what to do with the thing after a
while, but I must say that at that minute I didn't. I held the rod out
over the water and let the flies dangle down into it, but do what I
would, they wouldn't sink; there wasn't weight enough on them.
"You must throw your fly, madam," said the gilly, always very polite.
"Let me give it a throw for you," and then he took the rod in his hand
and gave it a whirl and a switch which sent the flies out ever so far
from the boat; then he drew it along a little, so that the flies
skipped over the top of the water.
[Illustration: "I DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING, AND TAKING THE POLE IN BOTH
HANDS I GAVE IT A WILD TWIRL OVER MY HEAD"]
I didn't say anything, and taking the pole in both hands I gave it a
wild twirl over my head, and then it flew out as if I was trying to
whip one of the leaders in a four-horse team. As I did this Jone gave a
jump that took him pretty near out of the boat, for two flies swished
just over the bridge of his nose, and so close to his eyes as he was
reading an interesting dialogue, and not thinking of fish or even of
me, that he gave a jump sideways, which, if it hadn't been for the
gilly grabbing him, would have taken him overboard. I was frightened
myself, and said to him that I had told him he ought not to come in the
boat, and it would have been a good deal better for him to have stayed
on shore.
