344 THE MOOR AND THE LOCH. 



light early to fail, a small spring-cart and pony, hired from the 

 " general merchant," added much to the comfort, and, by saving 

 time, even to the success of a salmon day. 



Tommy, the pony, a fat strawberry dumple, and his driver, 

 a stout lad of fourteen, had a perfect sympathy with each 

 other's feelings and failings. Both were squat, good-tempered, 

 selfish, shrewd in economising trouble, and pre-eminently lazy. 

 To do Danie justice, he was a sagacious monkey, his intense 

 love of country gossip having even a slight smack of the 

 antiquary; and in truth, the drive up Glenlyon afforded a 

 fair field for his imagination and memory. From the gushing 

 waterfall on Chesthill Brae, with its mouldering brig, the 

 ruinous tower of Carnibarn, the old Popish kirkyard, the 

 eleven elm-trees, called, if I remember rightly, " The Daugh- 

 ters of Glenlyon," and which formerly did duty as milestones, 

 to the fat farmer, within a trifle of 7 feet, whose weight 

 turned a beam of 30 stone, Danie had always subjects for our 

 admiration or wonder ! 



Three weeks of warm July days had dwindled the Lyon to 

 a thread when I saw it first, and on asking a resident on its 

 banks his opinion of its angling capabilities, I received the 

 following very encouraging reply : " Oh ! you mustn't expect 

 to do great things ; but if it comes a fresh, there's one pool 

 where you might get a fish, if you were getting up at two 

 o'clock in the morning." Pleasant prospects ! 



An almost uninterrupted succession of dry sunny weather 

 still kept down the river until the Lammas floods. When 

 the water was slightly swelled by a few refreshing showers, 

 only some of the deeper pools came into low trim, quickly 

 falling back again to their thin clear state. The Garth keeper, 

 however, being well acquainted with the upper water, and also 

 having a good idea both of the size and colour of the salmon- 

 flies, no time was lost, when the clouds now and then grudg- 

 ingly favoured us with their driblets. Long before they were 

 needed, I had tied, by the light of the glorious July sun, every 



