DAYS STOLEN FOR SPORT 165 



cussed and answered with a 'yes' or 'no.' Neither 

 answer is correct, for, if you will only notice when 

 next you have a fish on that is going with a rush and 

 rising as he goes, you will instinctively lower your 

 rod top and give him line so that no strain of yours 

 shall help him to a somersault that may bring his 

 shaking head and open mouth towards you, with all 

 the risk of loss such leaps entail. My top was lowered 

 in good time, and, before I could raise it, the fish was 

 fifty yards away and tugging to increase the distance. 

 Round bends that caused the line to pass along jagged 

 edged rocks the fish struggled on down-stream, I quite 

 helpless; for to have kept on a strain would have 

 meant disaster, so, with slackened hne, I handed 

 down the rod and then scrambled down myself, wound 

 in the slack, and followed. 



John spends the summer months as sailor on a 

 steamer out from Oban and is as agile as a goat. 

 He clambered on in front, bared the stones of snow, 

 and held my forward foot. It was his care that brought 

 me safely to where I could wind until I felt the fi^sh, 

 which struggled httle after that. His sailor boots, 

 hidden beneath his trousers, saved my second fish, 

 hooked while on the Little Ladder. This spot is 

 reached by the aid of a short ladder — a fixture — 

 which lands you in a niche in a somewhat perpendicular 

 rock, quite perpendicular from the ledge to the river 

 beneath, from where, if your head is indifferent to its 

 surroundings, you may sometimes cast across a number 

 of fish and now and then have the luck to see one come 

 from the stem of a stone and seize your lure. This 

 was what happened to me when the snow lay deep 

 on the shelving narrow ledge down which, after ascend- 

 ing the ladder, I ought to have found my way to the 

 level of the river about eighty yards down -stream. 

 There was no delay — there often is — on the part of 

 the fish in realising that he was attached to danger. 

 Ke was off instantly for the 'Long Ladder Pool/ thus 



