Sport in 
But Dugald was there and held on to 
my skirt, while my fish plunged down 
stream. I knew I could not follow him 
far, for there was a bog close at hand 
impossible to pass, and as to wading 
into the river, that desperate measure 
was not to be thought of. I knew I 
could not stand against the stream in 
water up to my waist, and life was still 
sweet. Well aware of these circum- 
stances, and hoarse with excitement, 
Dugald shouted into my ear, ‘‘Show 
him the but or we'll lose him yet!”’ So 
I put out all my strength to stop his 
downward course. I felt I could not 
hold out very long with a fish of that 
size, the stream against me, and the 
weight of all my line run out, but 
fortunately he was fat, and soon the 
strain began to tell. He dashed up in- 
to more favorable quarters, more fa- 
vorable at least for me, as Ihad several 
hundred yards of clear ground between 
me and the mill. The game was now 
almost in my hands, unless my strength, 
never too great, should fail me, or my 
tackle play me false. 
For thirty-five minutes we strug- 
gled, he for his life and I for glory and 
the pot, but at last, panting and ex- 
hausted, I brought my prize within 
reach of Dugald’s gaff, and in a mo- 
ment he lay stretched upon the grass, 
looking like a streak of moonlight in 
the red of the setting sun. I was a 
proud woman that day and many days 
afterwards, for he weighed 32 tb., and 
was perfectly fresh run. Thus was 
virtue rewarded, as I could easily have 
snatched him with a gaff when he lay 
basking under the bank earlier in the 
day, unless, indeed, with a lash of his 
mighty tail, he had carried me down, gaff 
and all, to givemy name toanew ‘‘hole”’ 
in the Stour, never again to see the 
sunny meadows or the fire-clad hills. 
the Stour 291 
Must I admit, at the risk of tip-tilting 
all truly fishing noses, that many of 
our salmon were caught with a dace, 
and sometimes with a prawn? This 
fish, however, was hooked with a fly, 
which was a creation of Dugald’s—not 
a pretty fly, ungainly and _ headless, 
roughly made, but killing to a degree 
when the water was clear, and black 
despair crouched behind the fisherman. 
Other monstrous-looking objects he 
had for dark weather and thick water, 
but, to me, anything was preferable to 
his bottle of glycerine, in which there 
swam a company of ancient boiled 
prawns, quite unfit for society. This 
was the last infirmity of our ignoble 
minds, harassed by dark hints of house- 
hold necessity, and irritated by the airs 
and graces of fish, sporting on their 
way up stream to alien waters under 
our very noses, unworthy, we sternly 
felt, to be treated like gentlemen. 
In some of the pools in the Stour fish 
never seem to raise at all, although it 
is known that they lie there, and here 
they are netted from time to time. 
Such a pool is the one below Throop 
Weir, which is very deep and has a 
dangerous under-current. 
Here it was that poor Dugald Cam- 
eron came to his end in the river that 
he loved and knew so well. As he was 
drawing up one of the hatches it sud- 
denly gave way; he fell backwards into 
the mill dam, and was sucked down 
through the opening. He rose for a 
moment in the pool below, apparently 
stunned, for althougha rope was thrown 
right over his hands, he made no effort 
to catch it, and sank, to be seen no 
more, till he was drawn out, in one of 
his own nets, with four large salmon. 
Like so many Highlanders of that class, 
he was a perfect gentleman in thought 
and manner, and asportsman to the core. 
