ANGLING REMINISCENCES. 217 



one of the loveliest showers imaginable a glorious, 

 soul-stirring, nerve-renewing thunder-plump! Never 

 was one resolve so thoroughly dissipated for another 

 by this unexpected discharge of the element. We 

 had been waiting at Fort- William the arrival of one 

 of the steamers plying betwixt Inverness and Glas- 

 gow, with the intention of joining her on her voyage 

 south, when the first wild peal burst down from 

 Nevis, gathering in the responses of a thousand 

 lesser hills, recognizant all of their chieftain's terrific 

 slogan. 



May. Quite poetical grown, Mr Wandle-weir; 

 thou hast stocked a note-book with rhymes and 

 images, I venture to infer. 



Wandle. Nay, my humour was not so inclined. 

 But to proceed. Allowing the smoky conveyance 

 (a glimpse of whose tall funnel, walking the great 

 canal into Loch Eil, we had been so anxious for two 

 long days to obtain, and which, just as the last 

 shower-drop reached the earth, glided triumphantly 

 into view), allowing, I say, the murky water-coach to 

 wheel onward, out we danced, Herl-broke and my- 

 self (our friend Smoulter-jaws having waved his 

 adieus some days previous), toward Lochy-side, 

 where, at the distance of a stone's-throw above the 

 castle, we lit upon some shoals of princely sea-trout, 

 fresh from the brine. Of these, we took no less 

 than thirteen out of a single pool the largest 

 weighing upwards of four pounds, and as fleet, wary, 

 and nimble a fish, as ever line thwarted. But our 



