He has been about a fortnight in the neighbourhood, stopping at the chief hotel of a riverine town much affected by fly-fishermen and tourists. Still he has made no acquaintance with the resident gentry. He might, if wishing it; which he does not, his purpose upon the Wye not being to seek society, but salmon, or rather the sport of taking it. An ardent disciple of the ancient Izaak, he cares for nought else--at least, in the district where he is for the present sojourning.
Such is his mental condition up to a certain morning; when a change comes over it, sudden as the spring of a salmon at the gaudiest or most tempting of his flies--this brought about by a face, of which he has caught sight by merest accident, and while following his favourite occupation. Thus it has chanced:--
Below the town where he is staying, some four or five miles by the course of the stream, he has discovered one of those places called "catches," where the king of river fish delights to leap at flies, whether natural or artificial--a sport it has oft reason to rue. Several times so at the end of Captain Ryecroft's line and rod; he having there twice hooked a twenty-pounder, and once a still larger specimen, which turned the scale at thirty. In consequence that portion of the stream has become his choicest angling ground, and at least three days in the week he repairs to it. The row is not much going down, but a good deal returning; five miles up stream, most of it strong adverse current. That, however, is less his affair than his oarsman's--a young waterman by name Wingate, whose boat and services the Hussar officer has chartered by the week--indeed, engaged them for so long as he may remain upon the Wye.
On the morning in question, dropping down the river to his accustomed whipping-place, but at a somewhat later hour than usual, he meets another boat coming up--a pleasure craft, as shown by its style of outside ornament and inside furniture. Of neither does the salmon fisher take much note; his eyes all occupied with those upon the thwarts. There are three of them, two being ladies seated in the stern sheets, the third an oarsman on a thwart well forward, to make better balance. And to the latter the Hussar officer gives but a glance--just to observe that he is a serving-man, wearing some of its insignia in the shape of a cockaded hat, and striped sable-waistcoat. And not much more than a glance at one of the former; but a gaze, concentrated and long as good manners will permit, at the other, who is steering; when she passes beyond sight, her face remaining in his memory, vivid as if still before his eyes.