’Tis not for every one to catch a salmon.

EVERY one who knows Middleshire knows that the little lake of Beaumere is bounded on the one side by the Westhope and on the other by the Wilderleigh property, the boundary being the ubiquitous Drone which traverses the mere in a desultory fashion, and with the assistance of several springs makes Beaumere what it is, namely (to quote from the local guidebook), “the noblest expanse of water surrounded by some of the most picturesque scenery in Middleshire.”

Thither Doll and Hugh took their way in the leisurely manner of men whose orthodoxy obliges them to regard Sunday as a day of rest.

Doll pointed out to Hugh the coppice which his predecessor Mr. George Loftus had planted. Hugh regarded it without excitement. Both agreed that it was coming on nicely. Hugh thought he ought to do a little planting at his own place. Doll said you could not do everything at once. A large new farm was the next object of interest. “Uncle George rebuilt Greenfields from the ground,” remarked Doll, as they crossed the high road and took to the harvesting fields where “the ricks stood grey to the sun.”

Hugh nodded. Doll thought he was a very decent chap, though rather low spirited. Hugh thought that if Mr. George Loftus had been alive he might have consulted him. In an amicable silence, broken occasionally by whistling for Crack, who hurried blear-eyed and asthmatic out of rabbit holes, the pair reached Beaumere; and, after following the path through the wood, came suddenly upon the little lake locked in the heart of the steeply climbing forest.

Doll stood still and pointed with his stick for fear Hugh might overlook it. “I come here every Sunday,” he remarked.

A sense of unreality and foreboding seized on Hugh, as the still face of the water looked up at him. Where had he seen it before, this sea of glass reflecting the yellow woods that stooped to its very edge? What had it to do with him?

“I’ve been here before,” he said, involuntarily.

“I daresay,” said Doll. “Newhaven marches with me here. The boundary is by that clump of silver birch. The Drone comes in there, but you can’t see it. The Newhavens are friends of yours, aren’t they?”

“Acquaintances,” said Hugh absently, looking hard at the water. He had never been here before. Memory groped blindly for a lost link, as one who momentarily recognises a face in a crowd, and tries to put a name to it and fails. As the face disappears, so the sudden impression passed from Hugh’s mind.

“I expect you have been here with them,” said Doll. “Good man, Newhaven.”

“I used to see a good deal of them at one time,” said Hugh, “but they seem to have forgotten me of late.”

“Oh! that’s her,” said Doll. “She is always oft and on with people. Takes a fancy one day and a dislike the next. But he’s not like that. You always know where to find him. Solid man, Newhaven. He doesn’t say much, but what he says he sticks to.”

“He gives one that impression,” said Hugh.

“I rather think he is there now,” said Doll, pointing to the further shore. “I see a figure moving, and two little specks. I should not wonder if it were him and the boys. They often come here on Sunday afternoons.”

“You have long sight,” said Hugh. He had met Lord Newhaven several times since the drawing of lots, and they had always greeted each other with cold civility. But Hugh avoided him when he could without drawing attention to the fact that he did so.

“Are you going over to his side?” he asked.

“Rather not,” said Doll. “I have never set a single trimmer or fired a shot beyond that clump of birch, or Uncle George before me.”

The two men picked their way down the hillside among the tall thin tree trunks. There was no one except the dogs at the keeper’s cottage in a clearing half-way down. Doll took the key of the boathouse from a little hole under the eaves.

“I think Withers must be out,” he remarked at last, after knocking and calling at the locked door and peering through the closed window. Hugh had been of that opinion for some time. “Gone out with his wife, I expect. Never mind, we can do without him.”

They went slipping over the dry beech-mast to the boathouse. Doll unlocked the door and climbed into one of the boats, Hugh and Crack followed. They got a perch rod off a long shelf, and half a dozen trimmers. Then they pulled out a little way and stopped near an archipelago of water-lily leaves.

Doll got out the perch rod and float and made a cast.

“It’s not fishing,” he said apologetically, half to his guest and half to his Maker. “But we are bound to get some baits.”

Hugh nodded and gazed down at the thin forest below. He could see the perch moving in little companies in the still water beyond the water trees. Presently a perch, a very small one, out alone for the first time, came up, all stiff head and shoulders and wagging tail, to the carelessly covered hook.

“Don’t, don’t, you young idiot,” said Hugh below his breath. But the perch knew that the time had come when a perch must judge for himself.

The float curtsied and went under, and in another second the little independent was in the boat.

“There are other fools in the world besides me, it seems,” said Hugh to himself.

“He’ll do, but I wish he was a dace,” said Doll, slipping the victim into a tin with holes in the top. “Half a dozen will be enough.”

They got half a dozen, baited and set the trimmers white side up, and were turning to row back, when Doll’s eye became suddenly fixed.

“By Jove, there’s something at it,” he said, pointing to a trimmer at some distance.

Both men looked intently at it. Crack felt that something was happening, and left off smelling the empty fish-can.

The trimmer began to nod, to tilt, and then turned suddenly upside down, and remained motionless.

“He’s running the line off it,” said Doll.

As he spoke the trimmer gave one jerk and went under. Then it reappeared, awkwardly bustling out into the open.

“Oh! hang it all, it’s Sunday,” said Doll with a groan. “We can’t be catching pike on a Sunday.” And he caught up the oars and rowed swiftly towards the trimmer.

As soon as they were within a boat’s length it disappeared again, came up again, and went pecking along the top of the water. Doll pursued warily and got hold of it.

“Gently now,” he said, as he shipped the oars. “He’ll go under the boat and break us if we don’t look out. I’ll play him, and you shove the net under him. Damn! — God forgive me! — We have come out without a landing-net. Good Lord, Scarlett, you can’t gaff him with a champagne-opener. There, you pull him in, a............