FEBRUARY 69 



himself not of the thickest woollen webs. Ungrateful 

 mortal ! Know you not that no pleasures in life are so 

 exquisite as those which come of contrast ? Think of 

 the murky capital you have left behind, but think of it 

 in gratitude for the lot which has landed you in a 

 county where you could not find a teaspoonful of mud 

 were you offered its weight in diamonds. 



Well, the stranger has come to fish, and has nothing 

 else to do, unless he sit down and write to the papers 

 about the shortcomings and long delays of the High- 

 land Railway ; so he had best do as I did yield to the 

 sanguine gillie's persuasion, and put a fly over what 

 open water may be found. We had spent several hours 

 in a snowdrift at Dalwhinnie, therefore it was late in 

 the afternoon of the third day from leaving Euston that 

 I reached my sub-arctic quarters. Just below the lodge 

 a long, swift sweep of the Helmsdale was free from ice, 

 save for a few feet on each side a famous cast for 

 spring salmon; and about 4 P.M. I began hurling a 

 huge ' Goldsmith,' a flamboyant confection of yellow 

 feathers, scarlet wool, and silver tinsel, across the leaden- 

 coloured surface of the flood. It was bitterly, bitterly 

 cold ; the line froze to the rings ; the fly good save us ! 

 'twas as like a young crocodile as any winged insect 

 the fly, I say, had to be sucked clear of ice from tune 

 to time ; surely no fish can be astir in such a season. 

 Ha ! there is one, anyhow, as may be seen by the most 

 incredulous in a heavy swirl behind the lure. He would 

 not come again, so we both voted him a kelt, and went 

 on. Twenty yards lower I fastened in something, a 



