EFFECTS OF A STORM 157 



But your real professor, who has youth on his side, 

 should neither have boats nor boots, but be sufficient 

 in himself. No delay, no hauling the boat up the 

 stream, but in and out, like an otter ; even like 

 we ourselves in the time of our prime, Fahrenheit 

 being below zero. We then pitched our tent under 

 Craigover rocks, on Tweedside, and slept in it, that 

 we might go forth, rod in hand, at five o'clock each 

 morning to our aqueous pastime. It is true that 

 the late John Lord Somerville objected to our tent, 

 as being a white object, and therefore likely to 

 prevent the fish from passing by it to his upper 

 water. But we proved to him, by mathematical 

 lines adroitly drawn, that it was not within the 

 range of a salmon's optics. So our tent stood, till 

 a violent storm assailed us one night with barbarous 

 fury, tore up the pegs to which the ropes were 

 fastened, and gave up all our canvass to the winds. 

 Thus, we got an ample soaking in our bed, in which 

 we cut a pretty figure, no doubt, when disclosed to 

 public gaze ; but we were not blown into the Tweed ; 

 so that, upon the whole, we were uncommonly 

 fortunate. But we discard ourselves for the 

 present. 



I say then, and will maintain it, that a salmon 

 fisher should be strong in the arms, or he will never 

 be able to keep on thrashing for ten or twelve hours 

 together with a rod eighteen or twenty feet long, 

 with ever and anon a lusty salmon at the end of his 

 line, pulling like a wild horse with the lasso about 

 him. Now he is obliged to keep his arms aloft, that 

 the line may clear the rocks now he must rush into 



