38 A HIGHLAND LAIRD 



strong for their size. As a rule, however, except for 

 an occasional dish for breakfast, very little attention is 

 paid to these, although now and then the boys will 

 condescend to ply the otter among the shoals of still 

 smaller fry in one of the mountain tarns. But there is 

 unrivalled sea-trout fishing at the head of the loch, 

 where the tide runs into the river ; and the lower pools 

 of the Ernan are famed far and wide for salmon. 

 Where the hills have closed in on the level strath, the 

 Ernan winds along among the rocks and the birch- 

 woods, now tumbling over half-submerged shelves in 

 an infinity of white tiny cataracts now rushing along 

 in a narrowed bed in a succession of black, bubbling 

 swirls now eddying fretfully under the bank, beneath 

 the overhanging roots and the heather. It is no easy 

 matter to make a cast in some of these pools, where 

 you have to balance yourself in fishing-boots on a 

 slippery shelf, with the branches of the trees behind 

 bending down over your shoulder ; and you dare not 

 cut them away, for fear of the salmon resenting it. 

 But the laird handles his heavy rod in these circum- 

 stances as if he had been born and bred up to the 

 calling of an acrobat : he casts a long line out under- 

 hand, with the skill that has been born of much 

 experience ; and the sober-coloured fly is pitched, 

 with miraculous dexterity, right into the very ripple 

 it is meant for. But when the fish does come at it 

 with a resolute rush, and the long line runs out with 

 a rattle, the situation of the angler may be critical, 

 not to say positively perilous. Fighting every yard 



