LOST ! 113 



new situation, and made certain of a capture. The 

 monster was still strong, and sprung out of water, as 

 if to show me what a prize I was about to obtain, 

 and I acknowledged his value secretly. He next 

 judged it prudent to give a sudden turn, a sort of 

 ill-natured twist an obstinate obliquity of motion 

 that I shall never forget, or forgive : at once my 

 muscles ceased to quiver the line lost its strain 

 and sprang aloft in thin air, and the rod was as 

 straight as when it came from the maker's hands. 

 Here was an exposition ! here was a horror ! To 

 crown all, Walter stood by and took snuff most 

 provokingly philosophical, and I thought I detected 

 a half-suppressed smile on his visage. Raving as I 

 was internally, I still conducted myself with outward 

 decency, particularly when I found that the fish was 

 lost owing to the bad temper of a London hook, 

 which broke in the animal's jaw ; so that I, Harry 

 Otter, was not to blame after all. I gave one solemn 

 sigh for the death of old Kirby, whose hooks would 

 not have broken in the mouth of a shark. 



My Scotch friend now fitted me out with one of 

 his own flies, but desired me not to throw any more 

 in the Carry-wheel ; " for," said he, " as sure as 

 deid, the spirit is against ye : he hampered yer 

 heucks, he broke yer goad and yer flee, and he 

 pulled ye doon in the waters ; and ye never would 

 hae been seen again in this life, gin I hadna cotched 

 ye by the oxter. 1 Thae that the Kelpie grips 

 seldom rise again ; but nae ither spirit, ye ken, has 

 power in the rinnin' water." Whether I partook 

 of this superstition matters not ; but I left the cast 



1 The armpit. 



I 



