64 



A SCOTTISH FLY-FISHER 



We embarked next morning: they cheerful and con- 

 fident, encouraged by the presence of the master of the 

 mysteries of the loch — who, like the M 'Leans, had a 



boat of his own — I de- 

 jected and despairing, in 

 the company of the dis- 

 paraged boatman, whose 

 lack of interest in our 

 doings and whose general 

 poverty of intelligence 

 seemed to confirm the 

 worst that had been said 

 of him. But the Devil is 

 not so black as he is 

 painted, and Donald proved much less ignorant and 

 incapable than he had been represented. It was not 

 his fault that our results were meagre. The prediction 

 that I should take no fish was not literally fulfilled ; 

 I did secure a few, but so few that the adverse 

 criticism of my poor flies was almost, if not quite, 

 justified by the event. 



Disappointed, I returned to the hotel early in the 

 evening and awaited, with what philosophy I might, 

 the triumphant home-coming of the others and the in- 

 evitable " I told you so " when the insignificant result 



