THREE FfSHEKS, AND SOME BIG /-7.S77 133 



horrible stench pervaded the house which had been 

 built for the assistant clergy in Wilton Place, close to 

 his church. Engineers, plumbers, and workmen were 

 called in. The drains were of course discovered to be 

 defective, and were relaid at a heavy cost. It was 

 not till some time after that the real corpus delicti was 

 discovered in the shape of an r8-lb. fish which the 

 rector had despatched, carefully packed, as a present 

 to his senior curate, which in the absence of the 

 recipient had been left in his room to await his 

 return. Mr. I.iddell died in 1888 in his 8oth year, 

 having preserved to the last his keenness for the 

 sport, which doubtless did much to keep him in 

 health to such an advanced age, in the intervals of 

 very hard work cheerfully and conscientiously 

 performed. On September 28, 1885, three years 

 before his death, he caught with his own rod no less 

 than twenty fish at Taymount on the Tay. 



Mr. Malcolm, of Poltalloch, although in the last 

 two or three years of his life he was unable to use his 

 legs enough to enjoy his favourite pastime, did not 

 altogether give up the rod and line until nearly eighty 

 years of age, and continued to lease the celebrated 

 Makerstoun waters on the Tweed some time after he 

 had passed his seventieth year. I can well remember 

 with what deliuht he used to cast off the cares of his 



