62 TOUR IN SUTHERLANDSHIEE. 



selves above the sea, with our inn apparently some miles off, 

 probably about three, and three miles of such walking as, 

 after our hard day's work since three in the morning, we did 

 not much fancy. Just then, however, we saw a boat going 

 up the glassy loch towards our inn ; so hailing it as loud as 

 we could, we managed to make the rowers hear us, and they 

 having come to the shore, we with some difficulty scrambled 

 down the rocks and got aboard. In the boat was what is 

 here called a messenger-at-arms, which I fancy answers 

 somewhat to a superior kind of constable. He had been on 

 a strange and fruitless errand to arrest a girl of fourteen or 

 fifteen who had for some time been in the habit of driving 

 the sheep in the neighbourhood on to a narrow point of land 

 that reached into the sea, and having caught them one by 

 one she robbed them of as much wool as she could manage 

 to strip off'. Having carried on this system for some time, 

 she at last became a perfect bugbear to the farmers, and here, 

 luckily for us, was a well-dressed, rather dandy messenger - 

 at-arms returning from his chase, and going straight to 

 Khiconnich, to which place he kindly gave us a lift, for 

 which we were very grateful to him. 



We had a beautiful row up the loch; but the cold air, 

 after the great heat of the afternoon while climbing the 

 rocks, joined to sitting for an hour in the boat wet through 

 above my knees, gave me an attack of illness which eventu- 

 ally cut short my rambles in Sutherland. 



Between Ehiconnich and Scowrie I lost my only fishing- 

 line in a ridiculous manner. In the course of our drive we 

 passed over a fine-looking stream, the Laxford. Thinking to 

 catch a couple of trout for breakfast, I put my rod together, 

 and leaving the horse and boat standing by the roadside, I 

 determined to take a quarter of an hour's fishing, and if the 

 trout did not rise to continue our journey. At the very first 

 cast that I made, however, a large salmon took the fly, rather 

 to my annoyance, knowing, as I did, that no salmon were 

 allowed to be killed in the Sutherland rivers this season. 

 But being once hooked, he might as well be killed, so the 

 fight commenced by the fish running clear out of the stream 

 in which he was first hooked, and going down li^e a stone to 

 the bottom of a deep black-looking pool below. Havino- 

 only single line and trout-tackle, I could not force him much] 

 but after waiting patiently with a gentle but constant strain 

 on the fish, in order that he might still feel some weight 



