LOST! 113 



new situation, and made certain of a capture. The 

 monster was still strong, and sprung out of water, as 

 if to show me what a prize I was about to obtain, 

 and I acknowledged his value secretly. He next 

 judged it prudent to give a sudden turn, a sort of 

 ill-natured twist — an obstinate obliquity of motion 

 that I shall never forget, or forgive : at once my 

 muscles ceased to quiver — the line lost its strain 

 and sprang aloft in thin air, and the rod was as 

 straight as when it came from the maker's hands. 

 Here was an exposition ! — here was a horror ! To 

 crown all, Walter stood by and took snuff most 

 provokingly philosophical, and I thought I detected 

 a half-suppressed smile on his visage. Raving as I 

 was internally, I still conducted myself with outward 

 decency, particularly when I found that the fish was 

 lost owing to the bad temper of a London hook, 

 which broke in the animal's jaw ; so that I, Harry 

 Otter, was not to blame after all. I gave one solemn 

 sigh for the death of old Kirby, whose hooks would 

 not have broken in the mouth of a shark. 



My Scotch friend now fitted me out with one of 

 his own flies, but desired me not to throw any more 

 in the Carry-wheel ; " for," said he, " as sure as 

 deid, the spirit is against ye : he hampered yer 

 heucks, he broke yer goad and yer flee, and he 

 pulled ye doon in the waters ; and ye never would 

 hae been seen again in this life, gin I hadna cotched 

 ye by the oxter. 1 Thae that the Kelpie grips 

 seldom rise again ; but nae ither spirit, ye ken, has 

 power in the rinnin' water." Whether I partook 

 of this superstition matters not ; but I left the cast 



1 The armpit. 

 I 



