XV 



A NAUnoW ESCAPE 



'43 



and just as I was leaning over the bow of the boat to pick it 

 up, a rolling swell of the sea lifted the boat nearly upright, 

 grating her keel on the edge of the rock. I was hoisted with 

 the bow of the boat into the air, and holding on looked round 

 to see what had happened, the day being perfectly calm ; the 

 boatmen were pale with fright as we appeared for a moment 

 balanced between life and death, the chances rather in favour 

 of the latter. The same wave, however, as it receded, took us 

 twenty or thirty yards out to sea, and the men immediately 

 rowed as hard as they could to get a good offing. The wave 

 that had nearly upset us was the forerunner of a heavy swell 

 and wind from the east, which was coming on unobserved by 

 us, for we had been wholly intent on our sport. I never could 

 understand how our boat could have righted again after the 

 position she was in for a few moments. The face of the rocks 

 was too perpendicular at the place to admit of our making good 

 a landing had we been upset. Once away from the rocks we 

 were safe enough, and rigging out a couple of strong lines with 

 large white flies, we caught as many fish of different kinds as 

 we could pull in during our way over to Cromarty. A large 

 gull made two swoops at one of the flies, and had not a fish 

 forestalled him, we should probably have hooked him also.^ I 

 do not know a day's sport more amusing than one along these 

 rocks on a fine summer day, what with the variety of birds and 

 the beauty and grandeur of the scenery, taking good care, how- 

 ever, to avoid the rocks when there is the least wind or swell 

 from the east or north. 



' My friend the late E. R. Alston, while fly-fishing for trout in Loch Assynt in 1877, 

 did actually hook a large gull. One of the same pair which was nesting on a rock in 

 that loch pestered me the following year on drawing near its rock, and, had I wished, 1 

 could probably have taken it with my artificial flies. 



ACROSS CROMARTY BAY 



