ANOTHER RISE. 7 



Donald's advice being that I should at once direct my 

 steps to the best spot in the river, some little distance 

 further up. After sundry frantic leaps over tributary 

 burns, whose black peaty bottoms suggestive of the 

 idea of a " sinking fund," in addition to Donald's 

 testimony to their swallowing capacities, founded, as he 

 said, on the experience of various involuntary immer- 

 siojis deterred us from attempting to wade them, we 

 reached the wished-for spot. And a likely spot it was; 

 a large oval-shaped pool, evidently of great depth, and 

 capable of harbouring any amount of fish ; and, as the 

 breeze shifted about, leaving calm patches on its sur- 

 face, we could distinctly perceive, far down in its dark 

 but transparent waters, huge masses of peat-soil which 

 the floods of winter had torn from the banks, and 

 affording splendid retreats for shy fish. Above, the 

 channel grew narrower, and the current, in consequence, 

 more lively ; the tangled arms of a huge root, the 

 sole survivor of some giant of those primeval forests 

 which once covered these now treeless regions, stood 

 boldly out in the middle of this narrowed channel, 

 and, strengthened by a mass of debris borne down 

 from the moors above, checked the stream in its course, 

 and produced two pretty runnels at the head of the 

 pool, which, uniting a few yards below, became gra- 

 dually lost in the stiller depths and wider expanse of 

 the pool itself. " Noo, sir," said Donald, " noo, sir, 

 a' in thenking, if there be a saulmoii in a' the river, 

 'twill just be here ; " and I quite agreed with him. 

 " Cast below the auld root, and let her float doon, 'tis 

 a bonny current noo." I did so ; but the cast proved 

 a blank. However, patientia est virtus said a voice 

 from " auld lang syne," when as a schoolboy I first began 

 my accidence ; and so I repeated the dose, and once 



