TWO MONTHS AT SPEYSIDE 177 



that curve so dear to the angler, as a shriek from the reel 

 cried, "All's well." But down stream he continued to go — 

 fully seventy yards between us, he on one side, I on the 

 other. 



At length we came to a "croy," or "put" as they call it on 

 the Tweed, and then right from the other side of the stream 

 I coaxed him into the backwater of the croy, but only to see 

 him once more dash back to resume his old position. We 

 passed other "croys," and at each of them I repeated my 

 persuasive process, while at each of them he renewed his 

 counter-attack, and still down stream we went. Then we 

 neared the last "croy," so as there was no other good land- 

 ing-place for a long distance below this, I determined to make 

 one more prolonged, vigorous effort to finish the fight. 

 With gallant stubbornness he battled it out ; I persuaded him 

 ten yards nearer to me, and with a stroke of his tail he 

 retreated fifteen. For fully twenty minutes this went on, but 

 his rushes grew weaker, his white sides showed oftener, while 

 each move of the great tail propelled him a less distance, till 

 quite suddenly he was so dead beat as to come floating and 

 rolling on to the gravel, too tired for words to express. Donald 

 handed me the gaff, and in a second my prize was ashore, 

 while the thwack of "the priest" as it descended on his head 

 proclaimed the end of the fight. Forty pounds exactly ! and 

 a forty-five minutes' hard struggle over a mile of hard water. 

 I cried, " Bravo ! " for well I might, as but very few fishers in 

 British waters ever have the luck to kill a forty-pound fish, and 

 then I remembered Charlie's "sprat" of twenty-five pounds, 

 while I thought to myself how mercilessly I would take my 

 revenge. 



The next day we packed up our traps, and took a warm 

 but solemnly decorous farewell of the Misses Monyplies, while, 

 in spite of bad sport, we were loth to turn our backs on 

 Strathspey, for though we had taken but forty-two clean fish, 

 and landed some hundred and twenty kelts in the nine weeks, 



