SPINNING. 8 1 



rooks flitted and drifted high above it ; and the 

 sensitive fishes, as usual, lay sulking and fasting in 

 the depths below. I had hooked and returned, 

 very much to Malcolm's disgust, two or three 

 handsome but undersized fish, and killed one of 

 three or four pounds, when he proposed that we 

 should run out some distance into the lake, round 

 a point of the island on which the castle stands. It 

 was a hard pull, for our course lay into the very eye 

 of the wind. The waves by this time ran very high, 

 and the boat pitched and tossed as she might have 

 done off the North Foreland. At last we reached 

 our ground, and making a long cast from the boat's 

 head as she topped a wave, I struck and hooked a 

 heavy fish. For a minute or more I imagined it was 

 off, and had left my hook stuck in a rock, so solid, 

 heavy, and motionless was the strain on the line. 

 At the end of that time, however, my doubts were 

 removed by the fish stirring, and to some purpose, 

 running out at least forty yards of line, and then 

 stopping abruptly, as though to consider what was 

 next to be done under existing circumstances. 

 With some difficulty, Malcolm kept the boat's head 

 to the wind, and rowed towards the place where, in 

 very deep water, my intended victim lay, doggedly 

 motionless. The strain on the tackle was con- 

 siderable, for the rod was not, like a salmon-rod, 



6 



