INVERNESS-SHIEE. 125 



free to confess, that if there had been no fish 

 when he wound up his line, he would have, to 

 the day he died, said, that he had hooked a 

 twenty pounder, so lively and lightning-like was 

 the run of it. The Ness is one of those rivers, 

 that, unless after very great rains, flows on in 

 a pure and constant stream, from one of those 

 fountains which does not send forth sweet water 

 and bitter at the same place, its source being 

 from a loch of considerable magnitude, twenty- 

 six miles in length, and a mile and a-half in 

 breadth, and, like a well-regulated mind, it is not 

 easily disturbed. It takes a great deal to rouse 

 her ; she often, like the good housewife, wears the 

 green spectacles, and sees and hears much around 

 her, heeding it not. Much rain may fall on the 

 distant straths and glens, before it makes any im- 

 pression on her smooth and smiling face ; so that 

 her run is uniform and pellucid. O, that all 

 our minds generally flowed on as clear and calm 



' As this shining river, or e'er it reached the sea.' 

 It has good pools for salmon near the loch, and 



minutes, he silently recommended himself to its power ; 

 then giving a spring up, he went clean over on the other 

 side of his horse altogether, with Hoot hoot, Mr 

 Providence ; when you Jo, you overdo ! 



