rock, that heaved up from the midst of the smaller pool, a good fish
took a little white moth which had fluttered within reach.

Mark set about his sport, yet felt that a sort of unfamiliar
division had come into his mind and, while he brought two tiny-eyed
flies from a box and fastened them to the hairlike leader he always
used, there persisted the thought of the auburn girl--her eyes blue
as April--her voice so bird-like and untouched with human
emotion--her swift, delicate tread.

He began to fish as the light thickened; but he only cast once or
twice and then decided to wait half an hour. He grounded his rod and
brought a brier pipe and a pouch of tobacco from his pocket. The
things of day were turning to slumber; but still there persisted a
clinking sound, uttered monotonously from time to time, which the
sportsman supposed to be a bird. It came from behind the great
acclivities that ran opposite his place by the pools. Brendon
suddenly perceived that it was no natural noise but arose from some
human activity. It was, in fact, the musical note of a mason's
trowel, and when presently it ceased, he was annoyed to hear heavy
footsteps in the quarry--a labourer he guessed.

No labourer appeared, however. A big, broad man approached him, clad
in a Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers and a red waistcoat with
gaudy brass buttons. He had entered at the lower mouth of the
quarries and was proceeding to the northern exit, whence the little
streamlet that fed the pools came through a narrow pass.

The stranger stopped as he saw Brendon, straddled his great legs,
took a cigar from his mouth and spoke.