i62 ANGLING & ART IN SCOTLAND 



It was, as a matter of course, owing to the 

 Duke, who never could resist the excitement of 

 Sunday fishing; an occupation which usually 

 brought disaster with it. He could never go for 

 a Sunday walk without taking a reel and fly-book 

 in his pocket. I say fly-book, but that is inadvised ; 

 I ought rather to say a bundle or mass of flies and 

 casts hopelessly mixed up together, many of the 

 hooks being deeply imbedded in the lining of his 

 pocket, with an odd phantom minnow amongst 

 them to make the tangle complete. He would then 

 make for some sequestered loch where, if possible, 

 a boat was kept, and troll a minnow and several 

 flies behind — an employment that generally ended 

 in the minnow catching in the bottom and being 

 seen no more. Should no boat happen to be handy, 

 he would laboriously fashion an impromptu o^^er, 

 which for some "unaccountable" reason did not 

 act properly, and on no occasion was it known to 

 deceive a fish. If a rod could be smuggled out, so 

 much the better ; but he seldom risked executing 

 the nefarious deed himself, getting some one else to 

 do it for him, while he superintended or looked 

 on from a distance. 



On the present occasion his dupes were Craigie 



