VI The Last Salmon befoi^e Close Time 449 



plucked up my spirits, — put on the spoon again just 

 above a pet pool of mine, where the river, after 

 rattling and roaring through a wilderness of big 

 stones, lets itself down easily and creamily into an 

 unfathomable hole, with lots of shelves and ledges 

 round its sides for wearied fishes to rest upon, and 

 finishing off with a long, boiling, seething swirl under 

 a lofty bank of clay and rolled pebbles. In the 

 broken water above I spun my spoon, thinking 

 myself the greater spoon for expecting that any 

 fish in his senses would look at all. I spun on, 

 meditating on the old stone dyke on the other side, 

 and the broad field of yellow corn waving beyond it ; 

 and wondering whether it had been prettier when 

 the yellow broom that once fringed the river was in 

 blossom, than it was now with the less brilliant but 

 more useful stuff that replaced it ; likening the one 

 to the ancient Highlander, and the other to his 



modern representative, getting philosophical, in 



fact : when whir — r — r — r — r ! ! ! I was aware that 

 I had gotten hold of something, and that my line 

 was reeling off at a most frantic and dangerous pace. 

 I was seized with profound terror. If whatever I 

 had got hold of reached the pool below, I was a 

 done man. At that pool had I been an agonised 

 witness of the melancholy fate of a friend, who, after 

 having hooked a ' fush,' lost him after half an hour's 

 play through the lowness of the water, — having ' been 

 got ' round a stone twice ; the first time giving me 

 the rod and walking up to his middle, steadying 



2 G 



