REMINISCENCES OF LOCHLEVEN 235 



science, required to fish the stream than is 

 demanded in lake-fishing. The latter becomes 

 dreadfully monotonous work ; one gets lazy and 

 cramped, sitting or standing all day long at one 

 end of a boat casting, casting unceasingly. The 

 eye tires of the scenery, beautiful though it may 

 be, after a time, and is tried and wearied with the 

 glitter of the sun on the water. The wind is 

 always behind one, and save for the playing and 

 landing the fish there is little or no skill required. 

 The veriest duffer that ever handled a rod has 

 just as good a chance of catching fish as the most 

 finished craftsman. Nevertheless, for a week or 

 two, loch-fishing, under favourable conditions as 

 regards weather, etc., may be most enjoyable. I 

 have passed some of the very happiest days of my 

 life on Lochleven days which, alas ! can never 

 return, nor the like of them, for he who was then 

 my constant companion and close friend, as 

 gallant a gentleman as ever wore her Majesty's 

 uniform or put foot in stirrup, now sleeps in his 

 grave beneath an Indian sun. 



At the time to which I refer, our lines were 

 cast amid the pestilential airs and odours of a 

 Northern manufacturing town. The summer 

 days brought visions of cool streams, and fish 

 to be caught, and an irresistible longing pos- 

 sessed us to be off somewhere, we cared not 

 where, but anywhere away from the smoke and 



