SPIRIT OF THE CHASE 21 



river and not well-groomed, I alone, it would appear, 

 was for the moment visible. " Tamnation ! Here 

 he is again ! " I heard the Highlandman exclaim. 

 Instantly, however, seeing things truly, he changed 

 his tune. " Reel in, reel in ! " he cried, " or she'll 

 be roond that rock and cut ye ! " I saw the risk. 

 Although manifestly affected by what had befallen, 

 the salmon, head to the torrent, was moving steadily, 

 sideways, towards the other bank, near which a 

 jagged rock churned the water into foam. If he 

 won his way beyond it on the upper side, and then 

 dropped down, I should be undone. With all my 

 might I checked him ; rod, line, and cast stood the 

 uncompromising strain ; desisting, the salmon rolled 

 over and over, as if in rage, lashing the water with 

 his tail ; and ere long, almost at the very spot where 

 little more than an hour before he had landed the 

 fisherman, the Highlandman gaffed the fish. 



This incident, even to the minute details, lives in 

 the memory, and so does many another affair of the 

 same kind. The vivid permanence of the impressions 

 is rather puzzling. At the time of fishing the eye- 

 sight seems exclusively engaged upon where the flies 

 are, and one does not pay much heed to the scenery ; 

 but, somehow, the scenery is included in the picture. 

 What a spectacle a full-flowing river is ! There it 

 goes, now roaring through a mountain pass; then 

 becoming quiet as it finds a plain ; here and there 

 resting in a broad black pool. Wherever the salmon 

 is at home the scenery of our land is big. The very 

 aspects of the weather, mists, clouds, storms of rain 



