WHITEADDER AND LAUDERDALE 



enjoyed ourselves, though we never so much as saw 

 a trout. When we got back to the inn, whose simple 

 proprietors, curiously enough, were not at aU fish-wise, 

 we did learn that our fish were bull trout, which to 

 our southern ears meant nothing at all. But being ob- 

 viously of the salmon kind, it did occur to us rather late 

 in the day that they must be kelts, and that it was 

 illegal to kill them. The inn people didn't know 

 anything about this. All they knew about fish was 

 how to cook them, and that they understood to 

 perfection. When we awoke next morning the whole 

 country was under six inches of snow, and we began 

 to realise how previous we had been in our eagerness 

 after the trout, so there was nothing for it now but 

 to go home. The innkeeper proposed to drive us to 

 Duns, five miles off, in his spring cart, whence by a 

 protracted railway journey we could get back to Drem. 

 By this time we had half convinced ourselves that 

 the six big fish, weighing some fifteen pounds between 

 them, were sufficient to bring us red-handed into the 

 police courts. We were determined, however, having 

 nothing else to show, to take them home, if only to 

 save our faces against the gibes of our non-anghng 

 household, who had regarded our enterprise as a 

 fooHsh sort of adventure. Such a display in such 

 unsophisticated quarters would, on the other hand, 

 be a great triumph. And it was now that the Irish- 

 man planned, and quite characteristically, what seemed, 

 if our ideas were correct, a most gorgeous practical 

 joke. Nothing had been said of the supposed illegahty 

 of our haul to the East Anglian. And in the characters 

 our little company down in East Lothian chose to 



z 353 



