452 Notes on Sport and Travel vi 



agony ; he sped towards me ; he, the beast, on his 

 arrival did nothing but open his goggle eyes and 

 spread abroad his paws, join chorus with the girl, 

 and express his opinion that ' I'd a gotten holt of 

 summat ' — standing staring, without offering the 

 slightest assistance. ' Idiot ! ' I shrieked, ' come across 



and run up to for the gaff.' I watched in 



agony his clodhopperish attempts to hop from one 

 stone to another, instead of rushing through the water, 

 as a Highlander would have done in his excitement, 

 and which ended in his coming down a sharp bump 

 on to a sharper stone, and sliding up to his middle 

 into the stream. At last he got over, and raced up 



the brae for the gaff which held tight under 



his arm ready for the fish he did not catch. My 

 friend took to sulking, so I clodded him more than 

 ever. I could not understand his tactics at all. He 

 had all the rush and weight of a fish, but he had 

 besides certain little mean jiggling ways about him 

 which puzzled me greatly. He would snoor away 

 stoutly enough for a time ; then he would wander 

 calmly over to the other side, and snout and jigger 

 about the stones in a most unsalmon-like manner. 

 I grew more and more convinced that he was nothing 

 but a big trout hooked foul ; but still, whenever I 

 gave him the butt, I found that it was quite 

 impossible to move him an inch ; so we fought and 

 tripped up and down, — he getting sulky, and grubb- 

 ing, and I throwing stones at him to such an extent 

 that I must have cleared a decent holding by the 



