the shallow, and pin it
most cleverly to the shingle, hauling it out without accident. It was
only done in the nick of time; two yards farther down would have been
ruin. Everybody said it was a perfectly shaped specimen of the bright
autumn Tweed salmon.

The season, as a whole, that year on Tweed was what, in the mildest
form of regret, is termed "disappointing," though our old friend, Henry
Ffennell, in his annual statement of large salmon, was able to mention
a goodly proportion of heavy fish in the autumn. But that particular
back-end was bad during October and November on most of the beats below
Kelso. A few days after I had returned to the glories of Windsor
House, and had Bream's-buildings as the choicest of handy landscapes, I
realised the vast pleasure of learning in "Tweedside's" weekly report
from Kelso, which I was reading in a November fog that pervaded the
entire office, that Mr. Gilbey had been fortunate in catching a 42-lb.
salmon at Carham, his best fish to that date, and, I think, the best
Tweed fish of that season. It was taken on a salmon fly bearing the
troutsome name of Orange Dun, and it was a fancy pattern worked out as
I understood, by Tarn Sligh, one of the veteran gillies of Tweedside.
This fly was a very taking harmony in yellow, and Mr. Gilbey was
fishing with one of the small sizes on a single gut collar. The salmon
was hooked near the Bell Rock, a favourite autumn cast under the right
bank down by the woods below the hut. For some time the angler did not
realise what was at the end of the line. It kept quietly down, and
moved in steam-roller measure up-stream, never taking out more than a
yard of line at a time, which, under the good management of the boat,
fifteen yards or so in rear of the fish, was always recovered with
ease. So the salmon advanced, yard by yard, up to the more streamy
cast of the Craig. Mr. Gilbey landed in due course here on the high
bank, and then for the first time caught sight of the broad-sided
fellow, which the taciturn attendant netted without a mistake. The
fish was pronounced by all who saw it to be as beautifully modelled and
bright a kipper as autumn ever produced. Such a fish deserved to be
caught, recorded, photographed, and cast, and all this was duly done.
The plaster cast was a triumphant success, and you seem to see the fish
itself in form and colour upon the wall which it honours and adorns.

CHAPTER XI

A SERMON ON VEXATIONS AND