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"Get up, man; get up! Look
at the morning! What florious sunshine! What mists rising on the loch!"
And, indeed, the fresh
morning air through the open window, and the flood of rich sunlight
falling on the opposite wall of the room, are enough to dispel all
lingering drowsiness. Up, then, for a refreshing plunge in the deepest
pool of the river, breasting the brown depths with the exulting strength
that is born of the air of the mountain, and casting up, with waves of the
sweet murmuring waters, a high-tide mark on the white stones that are hot
already with the sunshine! Up for a stroll before breakfast along the warm
Highland road; to hear the cuckoo calling across the valley, and, at the
door of the byre, the sighing of the patient kine and the soft
plash-plashing of the milk in the milking-pails! Cool yet is the air of
the corrie as it comes from the waterfall, and all the mountain-side is
musical with the far off call of the grouse Under the rich leaved plane
trees there is the hum of bees at the green hanging blossoms, and from the
meadows by the flyer come the bleatings of a thousand lambs. Appetite
comes here keen as a knife if one but stands a moment on the sunny
doorstep, and the morning meal is enjoyed with a whole-hearted zest that
brooks no scantiness. Indeed, if there be healing power anywhere on
earth for the wasted body or the sorrowing soul, it is to be found here
among the hills. Who can long be sick at heart with that glory of valley
and sky about him? and who frail of step with his nostrils full of the
clover scent and his tread on the springing heather?
The newspapers have to be
got at the morning train, and it is curious to see how the jaded folk who
have been travelling all night in the close carriages from the far south
open wide the windows to let in the mountain air, and begin to revive like
flowers that have just been watered. Enviously they look at the sunburnt
school-boys, who have come panting along the line, and whose faces compare
all too well with their own pale features. The letters, too, have to be
waited for at the village post-office. It is universal supply-shop for the
countryside as well, so other business can be transacted while Her
Majesty’s mails, a very small parcel indeed, are being sorted out.
Then—for there is nothing needing attention in the correspondence—away for
the loch side! It is too fine a day to waste at the displenishing sale up
country, though gig after gig has passed carrying thither farmers on the
lookout for bargains. A fair breeze has sprung up, and a cloud or two are
moving across the blue, so there is the chance of a fair day’s sport with
the fly. Bring, then, the rods, and put some provender in the basket, for
there will be no coming home for dinner if the trout be taking.
The pleasantest road to the
loch will be the path along the mountain side, and old John McGregor can
be requisitioned as boatman, by the way. Yonder he is, under the flowering
gean-tree, mending his garden wicket. An easy, comfortable life the old
man lives with his many-wrinkled, bright-eyed old wife, on their "wee bit
bield and heathery moor." In that snug, thatched little cot they have
reared a stalwart brood—sons whose strong hands are tilling their own
broad acres in the West, and daughters in southern lands, about whose
knees are springing, sturdy as seedling oaks, the true materials for
future nations. But old John and his wife will be beholden to none of them
yet, and when his little croft has been planted for the summer and his
peats cast on the moor, when the cow has been turned out to the hill in
the morning and the calf tethered in the narrow paddock, he is always
ready to take an oar on the loch. His broad-eaved Balmoral bonnet and his
rough homespun coat are green with long years of sun and rain; but the
head and heart below them are as hale as ever. He is full of anecdotes
about the last laird and his feats with the salmon-rod, and it takes a
long day of wind on the water to tire his arm when the trout are rising.
Quick, though! There is a
cloud just now before the sun, and a fish or two may be got while the
shadow is on the loch. It was a mistake to coil up the fly-casts in the
tackle-book, for the gut will take some wetting to straighten it out
again. It is better to keep the flies round your hat. There, push the boat
off; the water is fairly alive with leaping minnows in the shallow bays,
and if the bigger fish be only as eager there will be plenty of sport. Try
a cast or two first across the burn mouth; a good chance of something lies
there, for the trout wait in the running water to seize any food the
stream may bring down. The boat can drift broadside to the wind, so that
it is possible to fish both from bow and stern. Bring your line well up
behind, and then with a turn of the wrist use the switch of the rod to
send the cast out, fair and straight and light, before you. Take care,
though; do not begin to work the line before the last fly has touched the
surface. The day could not be better, with that ripple on the water, the
wind behind, and the sun in front. Hardly an effort is needed to send the
line out, and it is possible to put the tail-fly on the very spot where a
trout has risen. See! here is a little fellow. What a splashing he makes
as the line draws him up to the boat! The spring of the rod itself will
lift him over the gunwale. There! you have another; a char, by his sides
of gleaming silver and copper.
Whirr! Ah! here is a fellow
worth catching; two pounds at least, by the weight on the rod. How the
singing of the reel as he makes off gladdens the heart! There he leaps,
for the third time; he is off with a rush, firmly hooked, surely. "Haud up
ye’re p’int !" shouts John in a terrific whisper. "It’s awa’ below the
boat! Ye’ll lose’t; an’ we’re clean a’most—the boat’s a’ but clean!" It is
an exciting moment; but the hooks have not fouled the boat, and the fish’s
freshness is spent. Slowly he is drawn in, showing the white of his sides.
Now with the landing-net! There! he is safe on board—"A gey guid fish,"
according to the cautious critic. Then comes the inevitable story. The old
man "minds ae nicht" here at the burn mouth. There was a party of three.
It was a fine night, but dark, and they kindled a fire, when, whether
owing to the light or not, they got a great basket of "as fine trout as
ye’ll see."
But the sun has come out
again, and, as the ripple is not very strong on the water, there is no
great chance of doing much with the fly for some time. Something might be
done with the minnow, however; so it can be let out with a long line and
trailed down the loch.
Down the loch! By the
little shingly bays where the swan is preening her plumage on the margin,
while her lord floats near, admiring; where the keen-winged, little
sand-martins are skimming bank and water, and the quack of wild duck is to
be heard among the reeds; past the lonely farm, with its weather-stained
roof, at the foot of its own wild glen—a place for life to linger and grow
sweet and gather memories, a place for the growth of strong love or deep
hate; and under the black crag that rises a thousand feet sheer against
the sky, making a mile of cool darkness with its shadow amid the hot
sunshine of the loch:—it is like the fabled Voyage of Maeldune. Then there
will be the return in the evening, when the sun has set and the clouds
roof the valley as with rust of gold; up the silent strath as the
mountains grow dark, and, under the shadow of Ben Shian, the still river,
like a pale-green thread, reflects its own clear space of tranquil sky; to
the quiet village where there will be supper by lamplight, and the
recounting to interested listeners the day’s exploits. |
