AUTHORS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 95 



yore, many a time up to our chin, till we had to take to our fins — 

 there ! Mr. Yellowlees was in right earnest, and we have him as 

 fast as an otter. There he goes, snoring and snuving along, as 

 deep as he can — steady, boys, steady — and seems disposed to 

 pay a visit to Rabbit Island. There is a mystery in this we do 

 not very clearly comprehend ; the uniformity of our friend's con- 

 duct becomes puzzling ; he is an unaccountable character. He 

 surely cannot be an eel ; yet, for a trout, he manifests an un- 

 natural love of mud on a fine day. Row shoreward — Proctor, do 

 as we bid you — she draws but little water ; run her bang up on 

 that green line, then hand us the crutch, for we must finish this 

 affair on terra firma. Loch Awe is certainly a beautiful piece of 

 water. The islands are disposed so picturesquely, we want no 

 assistance but the crutch. Here we are, with elbow room, and 

 on stable footing ; and we shall wind up, returning from the 

 water's edge as people do from a levee, with their faces towards 

 the king. Do you see them yellowing, you Tory ? What bellies ! 

 Why, we knew by the dead weight that there were three, for they 

 kept pulling one against another ; nor were we long in discover- 

 ing the complicated movement of triplets. Pounders each, same 

 weight to an ounce; same family, all bright as stars. Never 

 could we endure angling from a boat. What loss of time getting 

 the whoppers whiled into the landing-net ! What loss of peace of 

 mind in letting them off, when their snouts, like those of Chinese 

 pigs, were within a few yards of the gunwale ; and when, with a 

 last convulsive effort, they whaumled themselves over, with their 

 splashing tails, and disappeared for ever. Now for five flies 

 — wind on our back — no tree within an acre — no shrub higher 

 than the bracken — no reed, rush, or water-lily in all the bay. 

 What hinders that we should, what the Cockneys call, whip with a 

 dozen ? We have set the lake afeed ; epicure and glutton are 

 alike rushing to destruction. Trouts of the most abstemious 

 habits cannot withstand the temptation of such exquisite evening 

 fare, and we are much mistaken if here be not an old dotard — a 

 lean and slippery pantaloon— who iiad long given up attempting 

 vainly to catch flies, and found it as much as he could do to over- 

 take the slower sort of worms. Him we shall not return to his 



