REMINISCENCES OF THE LEWS. 209 



care kind of boy — something like Juan before 

 the women spoilt him, and he became too bad. 

 But then my piper had more good qualifica- 

 tions than his pipes and his good looks : he 

 was a Jack-of-all-trades, and I believe there 

 was nothing he could not do. Of his fishing 

 powers I have already slightly alluded to. He 

 was a surprising fisherman. To look at his 

 ordinary cast before you, you thought he was 

 sniggling or dibbling a fly at a chub ; but he 

 always twitched it up so that it was as straight 

 as a poplar, and woe betide the fish that rose 

 at it. Watch him when he was fishing and no 

 one looking on, and he would send his fly as 

 far as any one I ever saw — barring only, as I 

 always say, old Daice. He was by way of 

 looking after the Gremsta, having his domicile 

 close to it, when the family were away and he 

 was not piping at the castle — and he had per- 

 mission occasionally to kill a fish for his table. 

 This permission, it is believed, he used very 

 much as the Clerk of Copmanhurst used his to 

 kill an occasional buck in merry Sherwood. As 

 you went up the river, or to the best casts on 

 the different lochs, you would often descry a 

 light, tall, airy figure, with something uncom- 

 monly like a fishing-rod in his hand, flitting 

 away from your pet cast. He had the two best 



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