at the river. It was,
indeed, in glorious order, lapping over the top of the sharp stone which
we regarded as a measure of the due size of water.

"The morning was young, sleep was out of the question; I could not settle
my mind to read. Why should I not take a farewell cast, alone, of
course? I always disliked the attendance of a gillie. I took my salmon
rod out of its case, rigged it up, and started for the stream, which
flowed within a couple of hundred yards of my quarters. There it raced
under the ash tree, a pale delicate brown, perhaps a little thing too
coloured. I therefore put on a large Silver Doctor, and began steadily
fishing down the ash-tree cast. What if I should wipe Dick's eye, I
thought, when, just where the rough and smooth water meet, there boiled
up a head and shoulders such as I had never seen on any fish. My heart
leaped and stood still, but there came no sensation from the rod, and I
finished the cast, my knees actually trembling beneath me. Then I gently
lifted the line, and very elaborately tested every link of the powerful
casting-line. Then I gave him ten minutes by my watch; next, with
unspeakable emotion, I stepped into the stream and repeated the cast.
Just at the same spot he came up again; the huge rod bent like a switch,
and the salmon rushed straight down the pool, as if he meant to make for
the sea. I staggered on to dry land to follow him the easier, and
dragged at my watch to time the fish; a quarter to eight. But the slim
chain had broken, and the watch, as I hastily thrust it back, missed my
pocket and fell into the water. There was no time to stoop for it; the
fish started afresh, tore up the pool as fast as he had gone down it,
and, rushing behind the torrent, into the eddy at the top, leaped clean
out of the water. He was 70 lbs. if he was an ounce. Here he slackened
a little, dropping back, and I got in some line. Now he sulked so
intensely that I thought he had got the line round a rock. It might be
broken, might be holding fast to a sunken stone, for aught that I could
tell; and the time was passing, I knew not how rapidly. I tried all
known methods, tugging at him, tapping the butt, and slackening line on
him. At last the top of the rod was slightly agitated, and then, back
flew the long line in my face. Gone! I reeled up with a sigh, but the
line tightened again. He had made a sudden rush under my bank, but there
he lay again like a stone. How long?