TOM PUBDIE. 157 



seat, to which a salmon always returns after rising at 

 the fly. Tom Purdie gave me an account of a fish that 

 had perplexed him greatly by his non-observance of 

 this rule, as nearly as possible in the following words. 

 He might have used fewer certainly, but Tom was 

 not laconic. 



" I had," said he, " risen a sawmon three successive 

 days at the throat of Cadclon- water fut, and on the 

 fourth day I was determined to bring him to book; and 

 when he rose as usual, I went up to Caddon Was, 

 namely, the pool opposite the ruins of Caddon Lee, 

 where there had been a terrace garden facing the south; 

 and on returning I tried my old friend, when he rose 

 again without touching the heuck : but I got a glimpse 

 o' him, and saw he was a sawmon o' the biggest sort. 

 I then went down the river to a lower pool, and in 

 half an hour came up again and changed my heuck. 

 I began to suspect that having raised the fish so often, 

 I had become too anxious, and given him too little 

 law, — or jerked the heuck away before he had closed 

 his mouth upon it. And as I had a heavy rod and 

 good line, and the castin' line, which I had gotten thrae 

 the Shewn, had three fadom o' pleit gut at the end of 

 it, and the flee was buskit 'on a three plies o' sawmon 

 gut, sae I was na feard for my tackle. I had putten 

 a cockle-stane at the side o' the water foment the place 

 where he raise ; for bye I kend f u' weel where he was 

 lyin' : it was at the side o' a muckle blue clint that 

 made a clour i' the rough throat, e'en when the Queed 

 was in a brown flood, as she had been for twa days 

 afore. Aweel, I thought I wad try a plan o' auld 



