Roger made a modest gesture of dismissal, but flushed a little with pleasure at the compliment Jamie didn’t say such things lightly. “That was as pretty a touch as ever I’ve seen.” “Who taught ye to cast, Roger Mac?” His father-in-law took the trout as it came ashore, still flapping, and clubbed it neatly on a stone. “Taken,” I said automatically, setting a plate over the top of the bowl of goose-grease to keep Adso out. It nearly touched his feet and was falling off one bony little shoulder, but that clearly didn’t matter he was wide-awake and urgent. He was watching something, and I swung around to find Jemmy in the doorway, swathed in his father’s ratty old blue calico shirt. Not all the way closed, though-and the tip of his tail began to stir. “Not edible,” I said, and the big celadon eyes went back to slits. To the title-not to him.Īdso, draped languidly as a scarf over the table, opened his eyes and gave a small inquisitive “mowp” at the scraping noise. Now the title was a stinking weight, like a dead cat tied to a string round his neck, bloated with all the properties and tenants and farms and manors that belonged to it. For most of his life, that title had just seemed like another bit of his name, no more important in itself than Clarence or George-if a little more euphonious. Not officially: by law, he supposed he was still the ninth Earl of Ellesmere. It was the only place on earth that he felt truly belonged to him. Jamie turned to Roger then, and said, in a quite ordinary tone of voice, “Do Presbyterians have the sacrament of Confession, _mac mo chinnidh_?” He glanced at the boys, who had forgotten their argument and were back at their casting, intent as a pair of kingfishers. He was sitting on a comfortable stump, bare-legged and clad in nothing but his shirt, his old hunting plaid puddled on the ground behind. Jamie showed no signs of moving to pack up, though. No point in catching more the smoke-shed was full. Roger’s fingers tightened for a moment on his rod, but they had enough for supper and next morning’s breakfast, too. The trout were still biting, the water rippling with dozens of bright rings and the frequent splash of a leaping fish.
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