JULY 161 



Basta ! it is not a salmon at all : nothing nobler than a 

 two-pound sea-trout, than which, however, no fish that 

 swims makes a fight so headlong, so disproportionate to 

 its size. This one has disturbed a good piece of water, 

 dashing into every lair and scaring fish four times his 

 own size. I must rest the tail of the pool, and try higher 

 up. The rain is falling in sheets now — 



' How should I the shower forget ? 

 'Twas so pleasant to get wet ' — 



and the gusts are so heavy, it is no easy matter to 

 straighten fine gut across them ; but it is a proper day for 

 Linfad. At the sixth or seventh cast a long silver gleam 

 shines through the water below the fly, the line tightens, 

 and this time I feel I am fixed in something better. It 

 swims deep and slow, not realising its predicament, for it 

 cannot see its foe standing far from the bank. But as the 

 line shortens, this new customer catches sight of me, and 

 then the fun begins; for it is the fear of man, not the 

 pain of the hook, that makes a fish fight. 



No creature so incorrigibly prosy as a fisherman, even 

 when he confines his narrative within the limits of fact, 

 and the worst part of angling yarns is that they are so 

 much alike. I persevered at Linfad till there were 

 stretched on the bank three lovely grilse, weighing close 

 on seventeen pounds, and five sea-trout which made ten 

 pounds more. Then the flood was upon us, and I trudged 

 happily homewards down the seething strath. 



Now any reasonable being should be -jFell content with 

 summer sport like this. So pleasant and profitable had 

 been the looting of Linfad that nothing better could be 

 desired than to renew it on the morrow, when fresh store 

 of sea-fish would assuredly have run up. But man — of 



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