CHAPTER IV. 



The Trout of the Moor. 



IN a region where man has striven diligently to tame the wilder- 

 ness, where heathery heights rise loftily from their foot-hills 

 and " brown burns tumble as they run," nestles an old-world village 

 that breathes and inspires peace. 



Graceful birch trees and plantations of sturdy firs adorn the 

 sides or crown the summits of the hills, and gaunt veteran pines 

 stand sentinel over the valley. Grass of the liveliest green clothes 

 the lower slopes, its glowing verdancy forming a vivid contrast 

 with the sombre hues of the higher ground the not yet wholly 

 fertile tract that man has won from the desert, above which the 

 barren hills boldly assert their sullen eminences beneath the sky. 

 Rugged barriers these, hinting at sterner scenes beyond ; for they 

 form the hither boundaries of the moors that stretch to the far 

 horizon. 



Down in the valley a stream hurries to the lowlands, and you 

 may trace its sinuous course upward to where a bluish haze veils 

 the savage grandeur of the rock-scarred and heather-covered wastes. 

 Far up the vale, the valley escapes from the thraldom of semi -culti- 

 vation, and the moors, untamed and untrammelled, slope to the edge 

 of the babbling beck. Thither wanders the angler, drawn by some 

 mystic attraction begotten of salubrious air and boundless space, 

 in pursuit of the speckled trout that lurk in the lucid, peat-tinted 

 waters. 



Large trout are conspicuously absent from the streams of the 

 wilderness ; it is usually in ounces only that the weight of the 

 single fish is expressed. This lack of size, however, is amply made 



