VI TJie Last Salmon befoix Close Time 447 



ing — there, five miles down below, where she flows 

 calm and still between the seaweed-covered rocks to 

 join the blue sea, with a little cluster of fishing-huts 

 nestling round her, and loving her for the shelter 

 which she gives to the storm-sped fisher-boat. Call 

 you that an end^ O Southron, — that wedding of the 

 brown river maid with the broad blue North Sea ? 



No fat commonplace cows chevy us when we fish 

 ' her ' ; no pauper-grinding farmer comes down to 

 bully us for ' trampolining up and down ' in his 

 grass. Wild ducks fly over us, grouse come down 

 to drink, and fly off with a choking crow. Stags of 

 ten stand at gaze on the tops of the shingly heathery 

 banks as we turn the corner ; in the hot mid-day the 

 croak, croak of the raven comes stealing down the 

 wind from the far-off corrie ; and great lordly salmon 

 rush up out of her ever and anon, and fall back with 

 a splash that sends the water-ouzel scurrying down 

 the stream in an agony of terror. 



Laugh not at my lingering over her beauties, or 

 getting mildly Ossianic while talking of them. 

 Just over that hill, a little to the left, is the valley 

 where Bran fought the Sutherland dog ; a little to 

 the right is the wild glen where he was buried ; and 

 the very wind that rustles by us was whispering 

 among the bent on Morven not ten minutes ago ; 

 and, more than this, is she not gone from us, — lost, 

 lost, till next March ? OcJi, hone aree I 



On that sad Saturday, the last on which she was 

 fishable, she was terribly low, and no wonder ! She 



