SOME FOREIGN RELATIVES 123 



scene of action. The boatman looked astonished, but 

 there was no mistaking the whirring scream of the 

 winch. He instinctively turned the boat's head to the 

 shore, shouted directions as to how I was to behave, 

 insisting that we must drag the fish after us. It took 

 me some little time, playing the fish the while and 

 crouching uncomfortably on my miserable little thwart, 

 to explain that his business was to row and leave 

 me to deal with the fish. He at last acquiesced, and 

 abandoned his original intention of rowing an eighth 

 of a mile across the lake to land. 



That it was a lunge we soon saw. He had run out 

 some eighty yards of line without a pause. Away in 

 the wake of bright sunshine leaped five or six feet into 

 the air a very splendid form as yellow as gold. At that 

 distance it seemed as if the fish belonged to somebody 

 else and had no connection with my line. It jumped 

 two or three times, and we could hear the loud smack 

 as it tumbled back into the lake. Your British pike 

 rarely leaps out of water. This fish fought most 

 gamely. The boatman observing presently that the line 

 was slack, called Heaven in most insulting terms to 

 witness that the darned fish was off, and that it was 

 just what he had been predicting. The blanked 

 fact, he roared, was that it was a blooming wrong 

 to the country to go for lunge with such trumpery. 



