Stafford laughed. He had got down and dragged out a rod and a
fishing-basket.
"Sorry, old chap," he said, "but no fisherman could lose such a chance
as this, even to save his best friend from rheumatic fever. I thought
we should come across a stream or two, and I put on these togs
accordingly." He wore a Norfolk suit of that wonderful Harris tweed
which, strange to say, keeps out the rain, the heat, and the cold; and
flies were stuck in his cap of the same material. "But, look here,
there's no need for me to keep you; Pottinger will drive you to this
place, Carysford, where we stay the night--I've engaged rooms--and you
can have a warm bath and get into the dress-clothes after which you are
hankering. When I've caught a fish or two I'll come on after you. Don't
argue, now!"
"My dear Stafford, I haven't the least intention of doing so; I'm
simply dying for a bath, a change, and a huge fire; and when you arrive
you'll find me sitting over the latter humbly thanking God that I'm not
a sportsman."
Stafford nodded, with his eyes on the stream.
"I should give the nags some gruel, Pottinger, and put an extra coat on
them: it'll be cold to-night. Ta, ta, Howard! Tell 'em to get a nice
dinner; I'll be there in time for 'em to cook the fish; but don't wait
if I should be late--say half past seven."
"I promise you I won't," retorted Howard, fervently. "And I am one of
those men who never break a promise--unless it's inconvenient."
The phaeton drove on, Stafford went down to the stream, put up his rod,
chose a fly as carefully as if the fate of a kingdom depended on it,
and began to fish.
There is this great advantage in the art of fly-fishing: that while you
are engaged in it you can think of nothing else: it is as absorbing as
love or scarlet fever. Stafford worked his fly steadily and
systematically, with a light and long "cast" which had made him famous
with the brethren of the craft, and presently he landed a glittering
trout, which, though only a pound in weight, was valued by Stafford at
many a pound in gold. The fish began to rise freely, and he was so
engrossed in the sport that he did not notice that Howard's prophecy
had come true, that the mist had swept over the landscape again, and
that it was raining, if not exactly cats and dogs, yet hard enough to
make even the opposite bank a blur in his vision.