第306章 AT THE SIGN OF THE BALSAM BOUGH(21)

It was the first week in September, and the magnates of the lake were already assembling--the Common Councilmen and the Mayor and the whole Committee of Seventy. There were giants in that place, rolling lazily about, and chasing each other on the surface of the water. "Look, M'sieu'!" cried Francois, in excitement, as we lay at anchor in the gray morning twilight; "one like a horse has just leaped behind us; I assure you, big like a horse!"But the fish were shy and dour. Old Castonnier, the guardian of the lake, lived in his hut on the shore, and flogged the water, early and late, every day with his home-made flies. He was anchored in his dugout close beside us, and grinned with delight as he saw his over-educated trout refuse my best casts. "They are here, M'sieu', for you can see them," he said, by way of discouragement, "but it is difficult to take them. Do you not find it so?"In the back of my fly-book I discovered a tiny phantom minnow--a dainty affair of varnished silk, as light as a feather--and quietly attached it to the leader in place of the tail-fly. Then the fun began.