Page:Tales of the long bow.pdf/58

 having a love of the old English literature as of the old English landscape. But if he was an angler, he certainly was not a very complete angler.

But the truth is that Owen Hood had not been quite candid with his friend about the spell that held him to that particular islet in the Upper Thames. If he had said, as he was quite capable of saying, that he expected to catch the miraculous draught of fishes or the whale that swallowed Jonah, or even the great sea-serpent, his expressions would have been merely symbolical. But they would have been the symbol of something as unique and unattainable. For Mr. Owen Hood was really fishing for something that very few fishermen ever catch; and that was a dream of his boyhood, and something that had happened on that lonely spot long ago.

Years before, when he was a very young man, he had sat fishing on that island one evening as the twilight turned to dark, and two or three broad bands of silver were all that was left of the sunset behind the darkening trees. The birds were dropping out of the sky and there was no noise except the soft noises of the river. Suddenly and without a sound, as comes a veritable vision, a girl had come out of the