AND ANGLING SONGS. 169 



the lurch, carry off with it a further sample of my ingenuity 

 in fly-dressing. Nothing daunted, I again set to work, and 

 again and again was similarly dealt with; in short, hook after 

 hook, to the amount of nearly my whole stock, disappeared, 

 Before the furor which had incited me to this unequal contest 

 wore off, and with a face full of disasters, and nothing in hand 

 but a sorry grilse, I stole back to the house of my entertainer, 

 in whose merry welcome and smoking breakfast cheer I quickly 

 found as fair an amount of consolation as a vexed and discom- 

 fited angler could well desire. 



Breakfast concluded, I accompanied my host to the pool 

 which subtended the cruive-dyke, where we found the tacksman 

 of the fishings, along with his assistants, engaged in working the 

 long-net. After witnessing two or three very successful hauls, 

 the proceeds of which, in salmon and grilses alone, exceeded two 

 hundred, I resumed my rod, and proceeded towards the mouth 

 of the river, wisely resolving to forego for the present my salmon- 

 slaying inclinations, and content myself, while I had the means 

 and opportunity, with a fling at the white trout. It was not long 

 before I entered, heart and soul, into the spirit of the sport, the 

 fish being plentiful, and in fine humour for rising. There were 

 two pools in particular, neither of them of great compass, which 

 absolutely swarmed with silvery frolickers. I had only, in fact, 

 to lay my fly-cast over them in order to cause a ferment ; both 

 trail-hook and dropper being instantaneously assailed. There 

 was more of toying with the fly, however, than actually taking 

 hold of it, in this surface-stir a circumstance which a further 

 acquaintance with the sport has led me to observe is usually 

 attendant on sea-trout fishing, when pursued close to or over the 

 tideway. My stay at New Kelso extended to four days, during 

 which period I captured upwards of a hundred sea-trout (finnocks 

 and whitlings), running from half a pound up to three pounds in 

 weight ; also three grilses. 



