140 ANGLING REMINISCENCES. 



Another Part of the Water. 



Leister. Count your spoils, Tom, muster up your 

 booties ; 'tis time for us to be steering towards our 

 night quarters. I am somewhat voracious, and my 

 rod-arm is waxing stiff. Besides, what further is't 

 possible to achieve ? the breeze is dead, and the fish 

 dull. 'Tis now past four in the afternoon, and we 

 have plied at it these eight hours, doing, it must be 

 granted, no small damage. Let me see, I have here 

 twain salmon, five grilses, and twenty- nine sea-trout, 

 along with a score of finnocks and burn-fish. 



Otter. Good ! you out-weigh me, I fear, but not 

 greatly. I have but one salmon, four grilses, thirty- 

 two sea-trout, and about a dozen or so of the other 

 trash. Scarcely are they to be carried homewards, 

 methinks, by these tired arms and aching shoulders. 

 'Tis a herculean load after its sort, and fortunate 

 we are in not having to travel any distance. Wet 

 thy lips at my flask, Jack, 'twill help thee to strength, 

 and annihilate the seeds rheumatic, which a day's 

 cold wading is apt to imbed in the soil of one's con- 

 stitution. 



Leister. Thy medicine, Otter, hath an honest look; 

 better is't, of a verity, than most stuffs and liquids. 

 They are fools that cry out on't, as it were alway 

 harm's maker, though used at need-time and in 

 moderate measures. Prime whisky 'tis, that hath 

 tricked scrutiny and baffled the gauger, having the 

 breath of the heather and the spirit of the grain, 



