THE SALMON OF CLOOTIE'S HOLE. 353 



close, and in a faint whisper, and with much blowing 

 in our ear, delivered himself of the following awful 

 piece of intelligence 



" It's joust Auld Clootie himsel'," and his hair 

 stood 011 end. 



We were very much alarmed. Probably no man, 

 however brave he might be, would have been other- 

 wise than alarmed. 



Our hair stood on end too. 



But just as we were on the point of breaking the 

 line which connected us with so undesirable an ac- 

 quaintance, we reflected that Johnnie might possibly 

 lie wrong. "\Ve bethought us of the desperate work 

 of the last three hours, which, if he had given us, 

 we equally had given him, and we argued that though 

 Johnnie had good grounds strong grounds for his 

 assertion, yet he was wrong. At any rate we felt 

 we could not afford to throw away such a chance. 



The river was now rising rapidly ; places that had 

 been pools when we began to fish were now masses 

 of swirling water, and the streams were being turned 

 into roaring, raging, foaming torrents. Bits of stick, 

 branches of trees, and at last larger pieces of wood 

 which had been lying high and dry on the bank, 

 began to come down, and some of them, as they 

 washed past, threatened to come athwart the line 

 and smash everything. As the " whish " of the 

 passing sprites of men terrified the Ancient Mariner, 

 so did these flying dangers frighten us. It was 



VOL. v. 2 



