186 ON A HIGHLAND LOCH 



the point of observing to the gillie that the breeze was 

 too light and the sun too bright, when there was a 

 sudden commotion of the surface near the flies. A 

 good fish, but he had missed ; I cast over him again ; 

 this time there was no mistake ; he fastened firmly and 

 spun away into the deep, dragging the top of the little 

 ten-footer into the water. Luckily, I had a boat ; had I 

 been fixed on shore, he must have run me out at once, 

 for the casting line was very fine, and ' holding on ' was 

 out of the question. The game goes on so long and so 

 deep that I begin to suspect I am into something of the 

 nature of ' a fish.' ' Likely enough,' mutters some 

 Sassenach, who honours me by reading these lines: 

 ' what does a fellow who goes a-fishing expect to catch 

 but a fish?' Much, I reply; sea-trout, for instance, 

 which in Northern parlance are not fish a term of dis- 

 tinction reserved for Salmo salar. Presently all doubt 

 was settled by this fish springing high in the air at the 

 end of a dangerously long line, and revealing himself a 

 small salmon of six pounds, clean run from the sea. 

 As he made one of his final runs, a foolish little yellow 

 trout seized the bob fly, and gave me the satisfaction of 

 landing, for the first time in my life, a salmon and a 

 trout on the same cast. 



After this the breeze freshened, and sea-trout began 

 to look up; but even a three-pounder, fighting for 

 liberty and life in the headlong, untiring way that only 

 a sea-trout can, seemed tame compared with the digni- 

 fied, masterful manner of the salmon. I longed for 

 another tilt with the nobler quarry. The chance came, 



