150 HAPPY HUNTING-GROUNDS 



misery. It proved to be a fine salmon, and turned the 

 scale at 23 Ib. On examining it carefully we found 

 a wound on its head and a mark in the upper jaw, and 

 conjectured that although its end was so inglorious, 

 these honourable wounds must have been received in a 

 desperate battle with some brother angler who had lost 

 it in the moment of victory. The mark in the mouth 

 was without doubt that of a hook ; the wound near 

 the eye had almost certainly been made with a 

 gaff. 



It was very singular that this dying fish should have 

 been stranded at my feet, but it was even more remark- 

 able that two days later I should have met the man 

 who lost it, and heard from his lips the full details of 

 the fight. I might even have restored him his salmon 

 had I not handed it over as a deodand to the old 

 mistress of the farm. On Wednesday morning Frank 

 Gunnis, a brother-in-law of Lort Phillips, who had 

 been paying him a visit at Hvilested before my arrival, 

 had moved off with him to his mountain home, Alfheim, 

 on the high fjeld. He stopped to lunch with us when 

 on his way down the valley to join the steamer for 

 England. After our first greeting conversation natu- 

 rally turned on sport, and we began to exchange experi- 

 ences. " Ah ! " he said, with a sigh, " I had a terrible 

 misfortune last Friday. On my way up the valley I met 

 the lessee of the Musjerd beat, who gave me the run of 

 his water for the next day, the last of his tenancy. I 

 hooked a big fish in the top pool, had it on for quite 

 two hours, and after a desperate fight in the strong 

 water at ]p,st succeeded in bringing it to the side. My 

 fisherman gaffed it and was lifting it up the bank 

 when it fell off the point and rolled back into the water 



