Once throwing her head back to clear the tumbling avalanches of her hair, she chanced to see Ralph standing silent above.  For a moment Winsome was annoyed.  She had gone to the hill brook with Andra so that she might not need to speak further with Ralph Peden, and here he had followed her.  But it did not need a second look to show her that he was infinitely more embarrassed than she.  This is the thing of all others which is fitted to make a woman calm and collected.  It allows her to take the measure of her opportunity and assures her of her superiority.  So, with a gay and quipsome wave of the hand, in which Ralph was conscious of some faint resemblance to her grandmother, she called to him: 

“Come down and help us to catch some trout for supper.”

Ralph descended, digging his heels determinedly into the steep bank, till he found himself in the bed of the streamlet.  Then he looked at Winsome for an explanation.  This was something he had not practised in the water of Leith.  Andra Kissock glared at him with a terrible countenance, in which contempt was supposed to blend with a sullen ferocity characteristic of the noble savage.  The effect was slightly marred by a black streak of mud which was drawn from the angle of his mouth to the roots of his hair.  Ralph thought from his expression that trout-fishing of this kind did not agree with him, and proposed to help Winsome instead of Andra.

This proposal had the effect of drawing a melodramatic “Ha! ha!” from that youth, ludicrously out of keeping with his usual demeanour.  Once he had seen a play-acting show unbeknown to his mother, when Jess had taken him to Cairn Edward September fair.

So “Ha! ha!” he said with the look of smothered desperation which to the unprejudiced observer suggested a pain in his inside.  “You guddle troot!” he cried scornfully, “I wad admire to see ye!  Ye wad only fyle [dirty] yer shune an’ yer braw breeks!”

Ralph glanced at the striped underskirt over which Winsome had looped her dress.  It struck him with astonishment to note how she had managed to keep it clean and dry, when Andra was apparently wet to the neck.

“I do not know that I shall be of any use,” he said meekly, “but I shall try.”

Winsome was standing poised on a stone, bending like a lithe maid, her hands in the clear water.  There had been a swift and noiseless rush underneath the stone; a few grains of sand rose up where the white under part of the trout had touched it as it glided beneath.  Slowly and imperceptibly Winsome’s hand worked its way beneath the stone.  With the fingers of one hand she made that slight swirl of the water which is supposed by expert “guddlers” to fascinate the trout, and to render them incapable of resisting the beckoning fingers.  Andra watched breathlessly from the bank above.  Ralph came nearer to see the issue.  The long, slender fingers, shining mellow in the peaty water, were just closing, when the stone on which Ralph was standing precariously toppled a little and fell over into the burn with a splash.  The trout darted out and in a moment was down stream into the biggest pool for miles.