88 A RIVER OF NORWAY 



feet of our faces, half-a-dozen salmon. It is 

 impossible to put a fly over them, and I have 

 no other lure with me ; unlike a friend of 

 mine, who always " happened to have a prawn 

 in his pocket." But the sight of these fish 

 excites cupidity, and to-morrow I will come 

 again better prepared. 



Then we start on our homeward row. At 

 the tail of the second pool some trout are 

 rising, and E. tries a few casts. Suddenly 

 there is a boil and a splash, and the little ten- 

 foot rod bends, and the reel whirrs. Can it 

 be a big brown trout ? or is it a veritable lax ? 

 It is almost her first essay with the rod, and 

 the excitement is intense. Trembling we land 

 on a shelving shore, and at length after the 

 fish has made many a desperate run he is 

 safely brought to the net, and turns out to 

 be a 4-lb. grilse. And so we do not return 

 empty-handed. We ought to have had a 

 salmon too. Coming down the river through 

 the territory of the trout, I had put a trout 

 cast on my light salmon rod. I tried the 

 water below Second Fos on the way home, 

 and did not take the trouble to change the 

 gut. There I hooked a salmon, which made 



