1 88 THE SALMON 



entirely given it up at a comparatively early period. 

 There are not many in the sixties who can face all 

 weathers, and crawl among the peat hags and through 

 burns, regardless of possibilities of gout and rheu- 

 matism, or press up the brae face without a good 

 many sobs confessing their toil. An occasional day 

 on the hill is enough for many for whom the brief 

 season was all too short a few years ago ; but I hardly 

 ever knew a true fisherman who did not become, if pos- 

 sible, more devoted to his sport with advancing years. 

 The skill and judgment which come with long practice 

 and ripe experience make up for a considerable 

 diminution of muscular activity and youthful energy. 

 The three typical fishermen of my own acquaintance, 

 whom I have celebrated in an earlier chapter, could 

 still hold their own on Tweed and Ness with almost 

 any competitors when the youngest of them was over 

 seventy, and were never so happy as with a rod in 

 their hands. Salmon have been caught from a 

 pony's back or a bath chair ; but although I have 

 read of a paralysed sportsman who succeeded in killing 

 deer from a litter carried by two bearers, I have always 

 thought it rather an example of cheerful perseverance 

 under difficulties than actually representative of deer- 

 stalking in any true sense of the word. 



But enough of argument, which, like Lochiel, I 



