THE WEATHER 175 



The loch is no longer the glassy expanse it was 

 before sundown ; an air of wind, the usual evening 

 zephyr, has come out of the east, ruffling the surface of 

 the water and shivering into a thousand gems of light 

 the glow reflected from the still luminous sky. The 

 angler loiters along the windward bank, casting as he 

 goes. He does not confine himself to rising fish ; he 

 knows that beneath, if unseen, are others eager to act 

 as the instruments of Fate in accomplishing the end of 

 some poor, unsuspecting fly. Yet eye and ear are alert 

 to warn him of a rise, and he is ready, at a moment's 

 notice, to abandon the quest of the fish which may be, 

 for that of the fish which is. Though his attitude 

 befits his occupation and the scene, he is occasionally 

 betrayed into unbecoming haste ; now and then the 

 sight of a swirl on the water some distance off sends 

 him hurrying to the spot before the trout has time to 

 leave it. Sometimes, too, in his anxiety to make the 

 most of the short hour at his disposal, he runs excitedly 

 from trout to trout in a manner quite destructive of his 

 dignity, and possibly also of his hopes. 



The rise continues until the close approach of dark, 

 when it ceases as suddenly as it began. While the 

 angler is hastily playing his last fish, others are at hand 

 awaiting his leisure, but by the time it has been placed 



