128 DAYS AND NIGHTS OF SALMON FISHING 



ference, which gave me the same advantage that 

 a multiplying reel has with the usual cylinder.* 



William Purdie at that time rented the Bolside- 

 water, which runs by Abbotsford, and in which I 

 caught this fish. His son, then a little boy, happened 

 to pass by when I landed him, and I sent him home 

 to his father with the salmon ; but it was with 

 extreme difficulty that the little fellow got up the 

 brae, as his load, which was hung over his shoulders, 



frequently made him stagger back down the rocks 

 which he had from time to time ascended. That 

 little boy came into my service as fisherman some 

 seasons afterwards, and has lived with me now 

 about eighteen years. He is a capital fly-maker and 

 boatman, and a most valuable servant. Some of 

 his exploits appear in these pages, he being the 



* Scrope's reel was perhaps the beginning of the modern style 

 of reel in which the cylinder is of considerable circumference, but 

 that circumference is now achieved in salmon reels by the use of 

 " backing," that is to say, 60 yards to 100 yards of undressed line 

 which packs the drum before the dressed line is wound on. But 

 multiplying reels are by no means extinct. For big game fishing 

 at sea they are very necessary, and beautiful pieces of mechanism 

 some of them arc. (ED.) 



