Then he sat down to watch—­and to dream.  He could see that she was getting out more and more line, and throwing beautifully; but he had persuaded himself (or thought he had persuaded himself) into the belief that the singular and constant charm of this river had no association with her, or with the quiet hours these two had passed there together.  It was the stream talking to him that had fascinated him as he sat idly and listened.  He had grown familiar with every cadence of that mysterious voice—­now a whispering and laughing as the water chased over the sunny shallows—­then a harsher note where the current, fretting and chafing, as it were, was broken by multitudes of stones—­again a low murmur as the black river swept, dark and sullen, through a contracted channel—­finally a fiercer tumult as this once-placid Aivron, increasing in pace and volume every moment, flung itself, lion-like, over the masses of rocks—­its tawny mane upheaved to the daylight—­and then fell, crashing and plunging, into a mighty chasm, the birchwoods around reverberating with its angry roar.  Far away is the lonely sea.  This friendly river may laugh or brawl as it will, but there is peace for it at last; its varying voices must eventually disappear in the dull, slow tumult of the distant world.  And yet it seemed to him to complain as it went by—­to appeal to him; and yet why to him, if he, too, was summoned away from this still solitude and sucked into a murmuring ocean still more awful than the sea?

“Well done, Miss Honnor!” old Robert called out.

Suddenly startled from his idle reverie, Lionel beheld the line being swiftly taken across to the other side of the river, sending up a little spurt of spray as it cleft the current.

“A good one this time, Robert, isn’t it?” she cried.

“Ay, I’m thinking that’s a good fish,” old Robert made answer, as he rose from the bank and came down to her side.

“And there’s a fair field and no favor,” she continued.  “Plenty of room for him—­and he doesn’t seem inclined to tug.”

No, this was not a “jiggering” fish; but he was a pretty lively customer, for all that, as they were soon to find out.  For, after having rested for a minute or so, he made a wild rush up-stream, still on the other side, that took a dangerous length of line out and kept her running after him, and winding up when possible as well as she was able.  Farther and farther he went, until she had arrived at the junction of the Geinig and the Aivron, she being on the Geinig shore, and the fish making up the other stream.  Here was a pleasant predicament!

“Mr. Moore,” she called out, “take the rod and wade in!—­I daren’t give him more line—­quick, quick, please!”

Her entreaty was quite pathetic in its earnestness; but old Robert was less excited.

“If Mr. Moore was not here you would be in the watter yourself, Miss Honnor,” the old man said, with a smile.