24 WANDERINGS AND MEMORIES 



charged through the snow to Georgemas Junction, 

 and we got away with two days to spare. The 

 discomforts of that journey, which occupied forty- 

 eight hours, till we reached Edinburgh, one and a half 

 hours before the match, need not be described. 

 George had had no sleep or breakfast, but he ran 

 to the Inverleith Ground, and, much to the disgust 

 of the substitute waiting to play in his stead, donned 

 his togs and took the field with the English team. 



The great match of 1886 was perhaps the most 

 closely contested fight between England and Scot- 

 land ever witnessed at Edinburgh. Both sides 

 strove hard to score, but without success, till the 

 last five minutes, when an Englishman by a great 

 effort got over the line and scored a try for England. 

 It was George who had won the match. 



Between the years 1880 and 1890 I used to visit 

 my favourite hunting-grounds in the Orkneys, and 

 during this time enjoyed magnificent sport in out- 

 of-the-way places, which at that time others had 

 not discovered. Until I threw a fly on Loch Sten- 

 ness I believe no one had fished this excellent loch 

 except poachers with the " otter." One morning 

 I saw good trout rising to the natural fly at the east 

 end of the lake, and calling Johnny Lyon, my 

 regular gillie, I took ten fish of 10 lbs. weight in 

 an hour. Then the rise ceased. I found that this 

 occurred every day in early August, and that the 

 rise only lasted for one hour. Then we would 

 put on a No. 5 Brown's Phantom Minnow and 

 troll to the north end of the lake, a distance of 

 about three miles, and sometimes kill a big trout 

 or two on the way. In the course of these years I 

 captured yellow trout of 5, 6, 9 and 10 lbs. weight, 



