MY FIRST TWEED SALMON 55 



Silver Doctor ij in. long. This, and a couple of false 

 rises from salmon, constituted your only luck. Yet 

 there were salmon and grilse in all the streams, splash- 

 ing in the slow oily sweep that crept under the wood 

 yonder. 



It was consolation that night to discover that not 

 much had been done anywhere. A gossip in Mr. For- 

 rest's shop had heard that the Duke of Roxburghe had 

 killed a couple, and the Duchess, who fishes fair with a 

 good salmon rod and casts the fly in a masterly style, 

 also a brace. Mr. Drummond, up at the meeting point 

 of Teviot and Tweed, had done something also. That 

 night, too, the gallant General arrived from Tayside, 

 to make your mouth water as he, being cross-examined 

 as to sport, elaborated the record which had appeared 

 in Saturday's Field. If there is any wrinkle in salmon 

 fishing that the General does not know, you would like 

 to hear of it, would you not ? Mark his artful little 

 plan of using the common safety-pin of commerce for 

 stringing his flies upon, threading them upon the pin 

 by the loop before the affair is closed up. 



If you are wise, upon a river like the Tweed, where 

 all the fishermen are men of experience and skill, you 

 will not only ask their advice, but take it in the 

 main say, when it suits you. You were pretty hope- 

 ful at the beginning of this final day, though Jamie and 

 his colleague were cautious in expressing an opinion. 

 No doubt Scotchmen are nothing if not cautious, and 

 the trifle of doubt they adventured when they surveyed 

 the sky and studied the water might be merely national 

 caution asserting itself in the very nature of things. 

 Time passed, and when at noon or thereabouts you sat 

 down upon that very comfortable platform near the 

 stern of the boat, and wondered whether your back 

 were as broken as it felt to be, a cold shiver went through 



