But the best beloved, if not the most beautiful, of them all was the
BROTHER LOCH. It mattered not what was his disposition or genius, every
one of us boys, however different might be our other tastes, preferred
it far beyond the rest, and for once that we visited any of them we
visited it twenty times, nor ever once left it with disappointed hopes
of enjoyment. It was the nearest, and therefore most within our power,
so that we could gallop to it on shank's naigie, well on in the
afternoon, and enjoy what seemed a long day of delight, swift as flew
the hours, before evening prayers. Yet was it remote enough to make us
always feel that our race thither was not for every day--and we seldom
returned home without an adventure. It was the largest too by far of the
Four--and indeed its area would have held the waters of all the rest.
Then there was a charm to our heart as well as our imagination in its
name--for tradition assigned it on account of three brothers that
perished in its waters--and the same name for the same reason belongs to
many another loch--and to one pool on almost every river. But above all
it was the Loch for angling, and we long kept to perch. What schools!
Not that they were of a very large size--though pretty well--but
hundreds all nearly the same size gladdened our hearts as they lay, at
the close of our sport, in separate heaps on the greensward shore, more
beautiful out of all sight than your silver or golden fishes in a
glass-vase, where one appears to be twenty, and the delusive voracity
is all for a single crumb. No bait so killing as cowshairn-mauks, fresh
from their native bed, scooped out with the thumb. He must have been a
dear friend to whom in a scarcity, by the water-side, when the corks
were dipping, we would have given a mauk. No pike. Therefore the trout
were allowed to gain their natural size--and that seemed to be about
five pounds--adolescents not unfrequent swam two or three--and you
seldom or never saw the smaller fry. But few were the days "good for the
Brother Loch." Perch rarely failed you, for by perseverance you were
sure to fall in with one circumnatatory school or other, and to do
murderous work among them with the mauk, from the schoolmaster himself
inclusive down to the little booby of the lowest form. Not so with
Trout. We have angled ten hours a-day for half a-week (during the
vacance), without ever getting a single rise, nor could even that be
called bad sport, for we