WORM FISHING AND SPINNING FOR TROUT 57 



the question. But what of that ? Are you not, as 

 far as your own personal ideas are concerned, 

 monarch of all you survey ? Probably you do not 

 own an inch of all the glorious country around you, 

 but you have leave to fish this particular burn, and 

 that fills your cup of happiness. It is equally 

 probable that, in giving you permission, the owner of 

 the property looks upon you as a species of harmless 

 lunatic, for the smallness of the stream and of the fish 

 in it can be attractive only to a keen trout fisher- 

 man. But what does that matter to you ? As you 

 stroll along the burnside, through the rough fields 

 which trend upwards towards the hills forming the 

 fringe of the moor fields full of queer tussocky 

 patches, half rush, half grass you feel, right to the 

 very marrow of your bones, the magnetic influence of 

 the Highland atmosphere. To my thinking there 

 is nothing in the world so bracing and inspiriting, 

 or at the same time so nerve-comforting, as this same 

 Scotch air ; and so be thankful for it. As you wander 

 on before beginning to fish, you become aware of 

 the clear whistle of the golden plover and the call 

 of the peewit. The pert wagtail flirts his tail, the 

 dipper winks his eye at you, and then quietly 

 vanishes. In the distance you can both see and hear 

 grouse ; in short, on every hand there is infinite 



