58 A SCOTTISH FLY-FISHER 



Not every boatman, however, suffers in pained silence ; 

 many are much too ready to remonstrate with the angler 

 on what they, in their superior knowledge of the water, 

 conceive to be his ignorance. 



" Whit kin' o' flees are 

 thae, sir ? " enquired my 

 Loch Leven boatman when, 

 for the first time, I prepared 

 to cast a fly within the 

 shadow of Queen Mary's castle. 



"Flies?" I answered. "They're artificial flies, of 

 course." 



" Fine I ken they're artifeecial flees ; but whit are 

 ye gaun to dae wi' them .-* " was the rejoinder; "ye're 

 no expeckin' to catch fish wi' them, are ye ? " 



"Well, I did have that expectation. Indeed, it is 

 in the hope of catching fish that I am here." 



" Weel, ye'll get nane ! " was the confident reply. 

 "No wi' them things onyway ; the troots in Loch Leven 

 '11 no look at a flee they're no accustomed to." 



As my flies were as different as possible from the 

 Red and Teals, the Heckum Peckums, and the Wood- 

 cock and Hare's Ears with which the fish were so 

 familiar that they might have been thought to have 

 grown weary of them, the boatman's gloomy prediction 



