132 ANGLING SKETCHES 



myself from the bank. It was to little purpose. 

 Tweed trout are now grown very shy and 

 capricious ; even a drj' fly failed to do any ex- 

 ecution worth mentioning. Conscience compelled 

 me, as I had been sent out by kind hosts to 

 fish for salmon, not to neglect my orders. The 

 armour — the ponderous gear of the fisher — was 

 put on with the enormous boots, and the gigantic 

 rod was equipped. Then came the beginning of 

 sorrows. We had left the books of salmon flies 

 comfortably reposing at home. We had also 

 forgotten the whiskey flask. Everything, in fact, 

 except cigarettes, had been left behind. Un- 

 luckily, not quite everything : I had a trout fly- 

 book, and therein lay just one large salmon fly, 

 not a Tweed fly, but a lure that is used on the 

 beautiful and hopeless waters of the distant Ken, 

 in Galloway. It had brown wings, a dark body, 

 and a piece of jungle-cock feather, and it was 

 fastened to a' sea-trout casting-line. Now, if I 

 had possessed no salmon flies at all, I must either 

 have sent back for some, or gone on innocently 

 dallying with trout. But this one wretched fly 



