50 THE TROUT ARE RISING 
mirth or to give expression to some humorous 
fancy full of insight and point, the enjoyment is 
the greater for the contrast. JI remember, when 
in Dumfriesshire, seeing a farmer driving a cow 
out of his garden—goodness only knows how 
it had come into the garden—and I said: 
“ You'll have to call her ‘Maud’.” Immediately 
he went one better. ‘I'll have to call her ‘to 
order’,” he responded. And in another shire 
the good landlady at the inn capped all descrip- 
tions of some bonnie brown trout which three 
of us fishermen had just brought in. The beauties 
made a goodly sight on the huge dish, and the 
onlookers gave the rein to their adjectives, ““ How 
beautiful!” “How pretty!” “ What lovely trout!” 
and so on. Then spake our hostess. ‘Oo, aye ! 
Besides, they’re so useful for food.” Humour 
begins early with the Scots. Witness the school- 
boy who, asked to define “nothing,” replied : 
“It’s just when you’ve held a man’s horse for 
him, and he says ‘Thank you’.” But let me 
get on to my narrative. 
A night spent at Langholm was rendered 
interesting by a bit of fishing which I watched 
from the town bridge, overlooking the Border 
Esk, at the darkening. I was not fishing myself, 
but had paused on the bridge as one always does. 
Presently came two men, father and son. The 
son had just returned from military service abroad, 
and had settled down to work again in his native 
place. The sea-trout began to rise. The father, 
an old fisherman, was not going out that night ; 
