24 ANGLERS' E VENINGS. 



teetotaller I was afraid to take a gulp. If the old fellow 

 would only have turned his head for a minute, I would 

 have slapped the stuff out of the window, and made-believe 

 that I had drunk it, but he was too polite for that, and I 

 had to explain as well as I could that I did not quite 

 like it. 



Between this and Haeg the river is a perfect marvel of 

 beauty, and one succession of delights to an angler. 

 On the occasion of my first visit — this meeting with 

 Mr. Red-cap occurred on the second — we made out from 

 our boy, that a mile or so above Sailtun, where the river 

 stretches out into a wide and gently flowing stream for 

 some four hundred yards, we might defy Mr. Smith, and 

 fish away. The lad seemed to know nothing about trout, 

 as far as we could understand, but assured us that "lax," 

 i. e. salmon, would be caught of great size, for he imme- 

 diately held out his right arm to the full extent, and placed 

 his left hand on the top of the shoulder, to show what 

 we might expect. This set us all (there were three of us) 

 ablaze, and we immediately offered the lad a " mark " to 

 stop and tend the horses while we caught some " lax." 

 The bribe (lojd.) was sufficient ; we bounded from the 

 carrioles and immediately began to put our rods together. 

 My friends, less ambitious than I, put up trout rods, and 

 used smallish flies, but I, anxious alike to try a new rod 

 and to catch a salmon, took out my largest rod and a 

 gaudy yellow fly, about the size of a canary. Before I 

 had fished five minutes I got a trout of a pound weight 

 on this huge fly, and then I fished for some time 

 without success, but whenever I turned my head towards 



