DAYS STOLEN FOR SPORT 179 



ence in them when a full river comes after weeks of 

 waiting. There were no masks upon these youngsters' 

 faces. Their chance had come; they knew it; and they 

 gave no thought to dissimulation. Eating became 

 Bttle but a mere stoking. The sound of voices calling 

 with a quip to the servers of the varied dishes drove 

 ultra-refinement to the winds, and we were just a 

 tableful of noisy scramblers. 



Sport all round was capital that day. The sea- 

 trout in their feeding were as indiscriminate and 

 hasty as their captors had so lately been, and were 

 ready to take any fly, in any place, however thrown. 

 It was such a day as sends a novice home with pride 

 that he has so nearly learned an art which his elders 

 are said not to have mastered yet. There were fine 

 brown trout, too, among the captures; but Marcus 

 had the prizes, two splendid salmon, one of which 

 weighed fifteen pounds, the other nine. 



'Quickly come and quickly go' is the case with 

 spates in Highland streams, and by next noon the 

 river had returned to normal level, to new sobriety 

 and gentle ripplings among the boulders. But, before 

 it reached no-fishing limit, it gave to us more of its 

 game sea-trout and one more salmon. 



The Shiel has this advantage over many mountain 

 streams, that in its loch, within a half-mile of the hotel 

 door, there is always a hope af fish, so that fishers 

 need not rust while waiting for the river's rising. 



We spent a day, a dehghtful day, in exploring 

 the chief burn spoken of above. 'Burn' is but a tiny 

 name for such a stream up which, at times, good sea- 

 trout make adventurous way to pools of the quaintest 

 shape. Some are broad and shallow, where a shoal of 

 fish may be seen hiding beneath the eddying foam; while 

 others are deep, long, and narrow, not three feet wide, 

 where a fish when hooked is almost sure to leap from 

 the narrow trough to the bare rocks, there sometimes 

 to free himself and then flop back to the trough again. 



