slippery stones. A slip here would mean the loss of the fish, and therefore of all peace and happiness for many days. Once in his vehemence he nearly went ashore on the north side, and I pictured myself doing what a gillie did on the river a little lower down. This man hooked a fish, which jumped ashore on the opposite bank-into a little rock pool cut off from the river-and the tackle broke. The gillie was a plucky fellow; he divested himself of his clothes and swam across, and secured his prize. But he could not swim back again with it; and so on that bright summer morning the dwellers in the district were edified by the sight of a man walking up to and across the railwaybridge and down the other shore, whose only garment, so to speak, was a salmon. It is hard work holding up a heavy rod for nearly an hour and a half, and running down such a place as as I have described with a fish plunging and rolling about the eighteenth part of a mile ahead of one; with one's heart in one's mouth at the awful momentary slackness which could not be avoided; with a cold thrill running through the body when a fateful slip was nearly made; with the perspiration streaming down the face, and the thought flashing through the mind that perhaps after all he would get off. Such are the joys of anglers-the gentle emotions raised in the human frame by the placid amusement of fishing! Some people may say, What nonsense! Why could he not pull him in-reel him up? Try and reel in an unbroken colt with a thin cord round his body, knowing that your whole life after would be a blank if the cord broke. From one dangerous rock I did keep him-from one often fatal place I did manage to pull him aside; but for the most part I was content to keep as tight a hold on him as I could. In trying to get him away from Scylla I was like enough to drive him into the whirlpool. But all things have an end. Collie, who had had the cork on and off the gaff twenty times, had now his chance. I saw him wade into the river and cower behind a stone; I saw him stretch out the long sharp hook, awaiting the fish, as it came swaling down; I saw him strike-as if upon the vigour of his stroke depended the safety of Scotland-and stagger, and then, with indescribable relief, I felt the strain taken off my arms. The fish was ours! "He's forty pounds, Collie!" I shrieked. more! He's fifty!" "He's For once in his life Collie was unmindful of his caution and the stern coming judgment of the steelyard. "He's sixty!" said Collie, with a solemnity of countenance I shall never forget. He was a few ounces over 40 lb., perfectly fresh from the sea. But if he had managed, after displaying himself to us on the bank, to roll into the water again and get off, I do not think that I should have been able to hand him down to tradition as being an ounce under Collie's estimate. VIII. WILD-BOAR SHOOTING NEAR THE HEATHEN WALL OF THE VOSGES. A LONG drive uphill on a dark winter's night through an unknown forest is not a cheerful termination to a tiresome railway journey; and as the train came into the little station of Oberenheim, or Obernai, as it is called in Alsace, I thought with dread of the cold stuffy carriage and stumbling weary horses. The anticipation of a discomfort is said to be generally worse than its reality, but it was not so in this case. When the train stopped, a woman came up to the only traveller who left it. "You are the Herr who telegraphed for a carriage?" "Yes; I am the Herr." She was overcome with sorrow-the telegram had arrived too late-no carriage could be had that night. "No carriage in all Obernai?" "No; one was away at Strassburg, and the other two would not be back till the morning." "And were there only three in the town?" "Only three." It was necessary for me to get up to St Odille that night; how was it to be done? It could not be done L |