58 AN ANGLER'S RAMBLES 



I left Fochabers. Before quitting, however, I paid a couple of 

 visits to a small burn called the Tinet, four miles distant, the 

 trout of which, on the average, were nearly herring-sized, and 

 very abundant. On both occasions I filled a good-sized creel 

 with them in the course of four or five hours. The sight of an 

 angler, and the employment of fly and worm (I used both), were 

 quite new to the farm-labourers resident within hail of its banks ; 

 gumping, or perhaps netting, being the only means they had 

 been accustomed to adopt in securing, now and then, a dish of 

 trout; but it was evident they had not been severe in their 

 exactions upon the finny wealth of this little stream, which, by 

 alterations in a mill-cauld not far from the sea, it struck me 

 might easily be made accessible to finnocks and sea-trout. 



It was a far-removed stretch of the Spey, and in character 

 very different, that I fished over in 1835. I allude to the part 

 of this river, not far from its source, which passes by the village 

 of Laggan. I had walked over from Dalwhinnie, by Glen 

 Truim, encountering on the way, on its crowning ridges, one of 

 the most terrific thunderstorms I ever beheld ; the sublimity of 

 the scene, as I well recollect, being heightened by the transit, 

 within gunshot, of an eagle in full scream. On reaching Laggan, 

 in a highly drenched state, I applied for refreshment and sleep- 

 ing accommodation at the only inn, so far as I could discover, 

 belonging to the village. Instead of my application being, as 

 usual, civilly responded to, it was met by a gruff negative, and 

 a rude barring of the premises against my admission. I was 

 not, however, being tired as well as wet, easily put off, but 

 angrily demanded of one of the inmates, who appeared to be 

 curiously observing me through the pane of a window, the 

 reason of this unwonted reception. My interrogatory was 

 replied to by a stare and a turn of the head, which latter move- 

 ment I correctly construed into the holding of some communica- 

 tion with a third party. All at once the door of the inn was 



