Then the silence becomes sacred. You whisper--
although there is no reason for your whispering; you move cautiously,
lest your reel scrape the gunwale. An inadvertent click of the paddle
is a profanation. The only creatures in all God's world possessing the
right to utter aloud a single syllable are the loon, far away, and the
winter wren, near at hand. Even the trout fight grimly, without noise,
their white bodies flashing far down in the dimness.
Hour after hour we stole here and there like conspirators. Where showed
the circles of a fish's rise, thither crept we to drop a fly on their
centre as in the bull's-eye of a target. The trout seemed to linger
near their latest capture, so often we would catch one exactly where we
had seen him break water some little time before. In this was the charm
of the still hunt. Shoal water, deep water, it seemed all the same to
our fortunes. The lake was full of fish, and beautiful fish they were,
with deep, glowing bronze bellies, and all of from a pound to a pound
and a half in weight. The lake had not been fished. Probably somewhere
in those black depths over one of the bubbling spring-holes that must
feed so cold and clear a body of water, are big fellows lying, and
probably the crafty minnow or spoon might lure them out. But we were
satisfied with our game.
At other times we paddled here and there in exploration of coves,
inlets, and a tiny little brook that flowed westward from a reed marsh
to join another river running parallel to our own.
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