io 4 AN OPEN CREEL 



lying somewhere behind it, I realized my error. I also 

 regretted my own suggestion that, as the grass and 

 herbage were sure to be wet, waders would be useful 

 and appropriate. Long before we had accomplished 

 the hour of hard collar work, I was abusing waders 

 and all connected with them, and I fear I was abusing 

 the Doctor too for calling the journey a mile or two and 

 the mountain a protuberance. Still, the walk did us 

 good, and the little lake, when reached, disclosed itself 

 as a very lovely place, lying in a cleft of the high lands, 

 whose sides sloped steep up from the water and 

 sheltered it to some extent from the gale that was still 

 blowing elsewhere. Occasional gleams of sunshine 

 made the picture more vernal than anything we had 

 seen yet, and a few clumps of primroses were visible. 

 Elsewhere one half-opened blossom had been all that 

 had gladdened our eyes. As for the fishing, it yielded 

 no great things. Such luck as there was and there 

 was little about fell to me, for soon after starting I 

 stumbled on a little colony of willing fish at the windy 

 end of the pool, and succeeded in basketing half a dozen, 

 ranging from about three ounces to nine ounces the 

 ordinary size of trout there. Most of them were bright 

 Lochlevens, and as game as possible. The biggest 

 one, on feeling the hook, jumped once and then bored 

 down into the depths, which are said to reach eighty 

 feet. It took quite a time to get him within view 

 again. Besides the six caught, the March brown and 

 Wickham on my cast gained me a few more rises, but, 

 the taking corner once passed, not a fish would move ; 

 and when I got within hailing distance of the Doctor at 

 the other end, I found that he had only had one fish the 



