truggles he is on his back in the water, and
nearly strangled with his fishing-basket. In either case the fish goes
on his way rejoicing, and, after the manner of his kind, leaps out of the
water once or twice--a maddening sight.

Adventures like this are among the bitter memories of the angler. The
fish that break away are monstrous animals; imagination increases their
bulk, and fond desire paints them clean-run and bright as silver. There
are other chances of the angler's life scarcely less sad than this. When
a hook breaks just as the salmon was losing strength, was ceasing to
struggle, and beginning to sway with the mere force of the stream, and to
show his shining sides--when a hook breaks at such a moment, it is very
hard to bear. The oath of Ernulphus seems all too weak to express the
feelings of the sportsman and his wrath against the wretched
tackle-maker. Again, when the fish is actually conquered; when he is
being towed gently into some little harbour among the tall slim water-
grasses, or into a pebbly cove, or up to a green bank; when the
bitterness of struggle is past, and he seems resigned and almost happy;
when at this crisis the clumsy gilly with the gaff scratches him, rouses
him to a last exertion, and entangles the line, so that the salmon breaks
free--that is an experience to which language cannot do justice. The
ancient painter drew his veil over the face of Agamemnon present at his
daughter's sacrifice. Silence and sympathy are all one can offer to the
angler who has toiled all day, and in this wise caught nothing. There is
yet another very bitter sorrow. It is a hard thing for a man to leave
town and hurry to a river in the west, a river that perhaps he has known
since he fished for minnows with a bent pin in happy childhood. The west
is not a dry land; effeminate tourists complain that the rain it raineth
every day. But the heavy soft rain is the very life of an angler. It
keeps the stream of that clear brown hue, between porter and amber, which
he loves; and it encourages the salmon to keep rushing from the estuary
and the sea right up to the mountain loch, where they rest. But suppose
there is a dry summer--and such things have been even in Argyleshire. The
heart of the tourist is glad within him, but as the river shrinks and
shrinks, a silver thread among slimy green mosses in the streams, a sheet
of clear water in the pools, the angler repines. Day after sultry day
goes by, an