Xanfcseer atto /HMUais 621 



" For some days Leech sat patiently in a boat, hoping 

 that some feeble-minded fish would be tempted to come 

 and hook itself as the fly dangled carelessly from his 

 rod, and at last he had his reward. Just below the 

 dyke at Stanley the line suddenly straightened ; Leech 

 snatched up the rod, and away went a clean-run 

 25-poundcr with the hook in his gills ! Then the 

 struggle began, and great excitement for the fishermen, 

 as this bit of Stanley Water is a rough place, full of 

 rushing streams and deep holes, in which are sharp 

 shelving rocks, from which the quarry must be got 

 away at once, or he would certainly cut the line. 



After allowing him one good run, Leech scrambled 

 out amongst the rocks and stones of the Stobhall shore 

 and the fish, making straight down stream, dragged him 

 helter-skelter over boulders and through bushes till he 

 was nearly at his last gasp. Then luckily for him the 

 salmon retreated into ' The Devil's Hole,' and sulked 

 there for half an hour. The angler recovered breath, 

 and ultimately, at the bottom of Stanley Water, my 

 father gaffed the fish, to the great delight of ' Mr. 

 Briggs,' as subsequently portrayed in Punch'.' 



For Leech was the original of his own inimitable 

 Mr. Briggs, whose side-splitting adventures as a sports- 

 man were but exaggerated versions of incidents which 

 had happened to the artist himself in his pursuit of 

 sport. 



After his marriage Millais made Scotland his happy 

 hunting-ground, where every autumn saw him revelling 

 in the delights of grouse-shooting, deer-stalking, and 

 salmon-fishing. 



