GAFFING. 99 
a dish of potatoes a wild delirium. But there was nothing for 
it, so we put on whatever extra in the way of garments we had 
in our knapsacks and turned in fasting. What my friend’s 
dreams were about I cannot say, but mine ran on lakes teem- 
ing with fat luscious trout which came up to be caught of their 
own accord, and then, to save trouble, jumped spontaneously 
into the frying pan. Assuredly these visions must have been 
prophetic ; for though we fondly imagined we had camped on a 
plateau of .bare and unbroken moorland, when morning dawned 
the scene had been transformed as by magic, 
‘And on a sudden, lo ! the level lake, 
And the long glories’ of the rising sun! 
The sight of water—and water doubtless containing trout 
—gave, as Ingoldsby says, ‘a new turn to the whole affair.’ 
I fortunately had my fly rod with me, so I left my friend to 
make a fire as best he could and 
. stepping down 
By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock 
Came on the shining levels of the lake. 
Without stopping, like the bold Sir Bedivere, till ‘both my 
eyes were dazzled,’ I soon put together my rod and adjusted a 
cast of flies. Never before did I fish with such energy ; never 
did I watch fora rise with such breathless attention! The 
first fish I hooked was a mere ‘ troutling ’—little bigger than a 
gudgeon—who would at other times have been incontinently 
returned to the water ; but circumstances being as they were I 
played and landed him and deposited him on the bank with as 
much care as if he had been a five-pounder. He was two 
mouthfuls at any rate. A friendly breeze, however, shortly 
afterwards sprang up, and with the ‘long ripple washing in the 
reeds’ a satisfactory repast was soon provided. .. . 
Later on we discovered a farmhouse hard by the lake 
shore, and finding that the trout fishing in the Laggan and 
neighbouring Spean-water was excellent—we arranged to put 
up for a week with its hospitable inmates, and enjoyed really 
H2 
