LOCH AWE 153 



of the hour, who, with grim and set face, still 

 held on to the giant fish. 



Presently, amid breathless excitement amongst 

 the spectators on the terrace above, the minister 

 exerted all his power, and gradually wound up the 

 unseen leviathan to the surface of the water. As 

 more pressure was brought to bear upon the fish, 

 the line appeared to gyrate ever more rapidly. At 

 last the top of the trace became visible, and — a 

 shout of dismay burst from the agonised audience, 

 as with a mighty cloop 1 1 a big black bottle bounded 

 out of the water, attached to the, now unhappy, 

 minister's phantom minnow. 



It was an abominable piece of bad luck. There 

 was a small hole, near the bottom of the neck of 

 the bottle, in which one of the triangles had caught, 

 thus causing the bottle to tug and gyrate in the 

 water, for all the world like a hea\^ and sulky fish. 



It was adding insult to injury when some wag 

 noised it abroad that the minister had " taken to 

 the bottle." 



Bottles are not the only things which may be 

 caught when trolling in Loch Awe, for as a salmon 

 loch it is distinctly improving; but for ordinary 

 trout, trolling is not very remunerative work. 



