52 



WILD SPORTS OF THE WEST. 



advantage over him who cannot produce a fly, that no 

 collection which human ingenuity can form will com- 

 pensate. 



'* The best practical lesson I ever got originated in 

 the following accidental occurrence. Some years ago 

 I received private information that a travelling tinker, 

 who occasionally visited these mountains to make and 

 repair the tin stills used by the peasantry in illicit dis- 

 tillation, was in the constant habit of destroying fish, 

 and he was represented as being a most successful 

 poacher. I was returning down the river after an 

 unfavourable day, a wearied and a disappointed fisher- 

 man, and observed, at a short distance, a man chased 

 across the bogs by several others, and eventually over- 

 taken and secured. It was the unfortunate tinker, 

 surprised by the keepers in the very act of landing a 

 splendid salmon ; two, recently killed, were discovered 

 in his wallet, and yet that blessed day I could not hook 

 a fish ! He was forthwith brought in durance before 

 my honour to undergo the pains and penalties of his 

 crime. He was a strange, raw-boned, wild-looking 

 animal, and I half suspect Sir Walter Scott had seen 

 him before he sketched Watt Tinlin in the ' Lay.' 

 He was a convicted felon — he had no plea to oflfer, for 

 he was taken in the very act. But he made two pro- 

 positions wherewithal to obtain his liberty — * He 

 would never sin again — or he would fight any two of the 

 captors.* My heart yearned towards him — he was, 

 after all, a brother — and admitting that rod and coat 

 were not worth threepence, still he was an adept in the 

 * gentle art, ' although the most ragged disciple that 

 ever Walton boasted. I forgave him, dismissed the 

 captors, and ordered him to the Lodge for refreshment. 



