44 FISH AND FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 



* ' Till Birnam wood be come to Dunsinnane 

 I shall not move : 

 And now, behold, the wood begins to move." 



Thou master of the human mind, how admirably hast thou laid 

 the plot of " Macbeth !" Nothing escaped your genius, neither 

 place nor circumstance. The Celtic mind, as well as that of the 

 lowland Scot, was known to you ; you knew its strength and 

 foible. The weird sisters ; the bare and blasted heath, shine out 

 more clearly in your pages than in the paintings of Zucharelli. 

 In your grand artistic sketch the living actors are before us. 

 Immortal Shakespere ! First of poets. " Macbeth, a Tragedy," 

 would have secured everlasting renown to any name. 



Higher up the valley there stands a noble castle, called 

 Grlanmis Castle. It well deserves a visit ; and so also does Dun- 

 keld, where the Tay itself and many noble streams may be 

 angled in. I have not fished these waters myself, but I believe 

 them to be good. A longer rod will be required than for the 

 streams I have spoken of ; good tackle and choice flies and min- 

 nows. The great proprietor here is the Duke of Atholl, who is 

 uniformly polite to the well bred. 



On one occasion on my way to Taymouth I revisited Dun- 

 keld. A friend drove me in his gig from Perth to Dunkeld, 

 whence I left on foot for Aberfeldie, passing on my way Grand 

 Tully, where I might have halted ; but for Sir John, whom I knew 

 was dead, and Sir William in other lands. On taking up my 

 evening quarters at the Breadalbane Arms of Aberfeldie, I was 

 startled at some unearthly noises which ill-accorded with a 

 highland inn. A stamping and yelling ; a rushing out and a 

 rushing in ; a banging to of doors ; a sort of leaping and dan- 

 cing on the naked floors to crown all, some one played a fiddle 

 horribly out of tune. Startled I was, but said nothing until 

 next morning, when the whole secret came out. Some eighteen 

 or twenty Cambridge Bricks were passing their vacation here, 

 with their tutor. True to their Saxon nature, and being at the 

 same time thorough bricks, they were never at rest for an instant ; 

 they talked ver} r loudly; scoured the village in troops some twenty 

 times a day ; dressed fantastically, some in the tartan and 

 philabeg; their thin and fleshless English shanks were inde- 



