168 A LOST OPPORTUNITY 



and before nightfall landed a 16-lb. fish on the fly. 

 The water must have fallen about four feet in twelve 

 hours. 



The other drawback is the midges. They rise in 

 clouds from the heather on the upper beats, where a 

 brisk breeze serves to disperse them ; they stream out 

 of the wooded banks lower down, where the summer 

 wind seldom comes to the angler's relief; nearer the 

 sea, the saugh bushes seem planted for the very pur- 

 pose of harbour for the bloodsuckers. I recollect one 

 sportsman who had the temerity to go a-fishing arrayed 

 in a kilt. His beat lay among the moors — about the 

 Loups o' Kilfeather and the Slittery Craig. It was a 

 windless day, and the heather sent forth its customary 

 hordes, which availed themselves eagerly of such an 

 unwonted expanse of ' face,' for the garb of Old Gaul 

 is not habitually worn in Galloway. The old game- 

 keeper who acted as gillie for the stranger described 

 the scene vividly. ' He was fair mad, the body. He 

 lay doon on the heather and rowed [rolled] and rowed 

 himsel', and cried Da-a-amn ! ' 



But to my tale — a brief one, and the reverse of 

 creditable. We always reckon one good flood in July 

 as better than two in August. The fish are apt to 

 turn sluggish after Lammas ; whereas if a fly is offered 

 to a fish in July he is pretty sure to move to it. Well, 

 in 1909 it rained torrents on 21st July until the morn- 

 ing of the 22nd. The Luce runs sixteen or eighteen 

 miles from my dwelling — say an hour's run in the 

 Daimler. I had no means of knowing the state of the 

 river, but guessed that if she were too high at noon, 



