AUTUMN AXGLING ON THE LYON. 349 



weather broke into continued heavy rain. The first fair 

 morning I rode up the glen alone on the lazy strawberry cob, 

 and found the water in good large ply. I had scarcely 

 wetted my line before the clouds gathered, and poured down 

 their bucketfuls. The river soon began to wax, which of 

 course kept down the fish, although I tried the best casts with 

 large and likely flies. 



Expecting a friend to dinner, and time being nearly " up," 

 I was giving a closing sweep to the tail of the " road pool " 

 before trotting home, when at this mat-apropos moment a 

 splendid salmon hooked ! The casting-line being only fine 

 single gut, the first touch of my fish proved that, to land him, 

 he must be worked for with patience and caution. From the 

 roughness and steepness of the bank, the safest although most 

 tedious course was, if possible, to prevent the monster from 

 leaving the pool. As he proved " a sulker," there was little 

 difficulty in detaining him, but his phlegmatic temper was 

 such a stress on mine as sorely to tempt me to risk my van- 

 tage-ground in the fight, when two farm-hinds who had been 

 watching from a distance walked deliberately down to the 

 opposite bank, and set themselves doggedly to see it out. All 

 thoughts of hurrying the salmon, at the risk of the light 

 tackle, were now given up. My friend might be hungry and 

 the dinner spoiled, but the gaping clodpoles should never see 

 me break my fish. 



After nearly two hours' wary work, the victim became so 

 weak and docile as to allow itself to be guided to the bank. 

 The sight of the white gravel, however, always roused its 

 ebbing energies to dart again into the deep. At every dash 

 away from the shore, the laugh of the onlookers was hearty 

 and undisguised, until at last I shut them up by stranding 

 a beautifully -shaped sixteen-pound salmon on the sloping 

 shingle. 



My ride home would have been lengthy, had I not applied 

 the only incentive to diligence Tommy respected viz., a 



