A BOOK OF FISHING STORIES 



from the village. It was a hopeless fight from the first. He 

 had no backing on his reel, and little more than thirty 

 yards of trout line. He had no boat in which to follow the 

 fish if it left the pool. He had no gaff, and he had no gillie ! 

 The result, then, was foregone ; yet, in spite of all these draw- 

 backs, he managed to keep up the unequal struggle for nearly 

 two hours, with a patience and skill that few could rival. In 

 fact, we had sent a stray passer-by for a gaff, and were even 

 beginning to hope against hope, when the end came, for, with 

 one sullen flounder on the surface, the salmon broke the slight 

 hold and went free. 



Once more the scene of my retrospect shifts, and this time 

 I am in Norway, at the beloved Hvilested, where the glorious 

 Sundal River winds through the valley beneath precipitous 

 mountains whose perpetual snows swell the abounding waters 

 discharged some seven miles lower down into the long, narrow 

 fjord stretching from Sundalsoren to Christiansund. Here 

 I am no guest, but the proprietor pro tern. Here, too, the real 

 " stor lax " is fairly common, though, as it is now August, the 

 run of heavy salmon is over, and most of the biggest fish have 

 gone far upstream to the distant valley in which our Sundal 

 goes by its true name, the Driva. Sundal, or " South Valley," 

 is really the name of the glen and not of the river, but on our side 

 of Gjora I never yet heard anyone speak of the Driva. Here 

 grilse and sea trout provide the best sport in the latter half of 

 the season, but there is still a sprinkling of straggling giants, 

 and day after day my sanguine temperament bade me hope 

 that the long injustice of years might even yet be redressed, 



78 



