cutting down their
wretched oats and snipping off their 3-in. growth of hay in a cruel
north wind, with the mountain tops white with new snow. A week
previously we had been sweltering in moist heat, and it was the only
time I ever saw a mosquito in Norway.

The right-minded salmon fisher will always give first place to casting
from the bank, with or without waders. On some rivers such casting is
from rocks or boulders, and the work here is of the hardest, since it
means severe scrambling and slipping to pass from pool to pool. It is,
besides, a hazardous foothold that you get now and then. The
remembrance of half an hour in such a position has given me the shivers
many a time since. There tumbled over stupendous rocks upheaving
masses of pure white foam, true type of the great foss of the Norwegian
river in all its thunder and impetuous onrush. They poured into a
rock-hollowed basin of churning foam and smoking spray. It was a
turbulent oval pool, roaring and racing on either side, and narrowing
somewhat at the tail, where it leaped a barrier of boulders and became
a succession of rapids. The middle of this pool was, however,
comparatively tranquil, very deep, and more like an eddy than a stream.
This was the lie of the salmon, and there was said to be always one
there. To fish this maelstrom you waded across a platform of shallow
paved with slippery boulders bushel basket size, and stood in rough
water about a foot deep on a narrow ledge of rock protruding a yard or
so into the pool. It was deep enough beneath to drown an elephant; the
din of that roaring foss and the swirl of the waters bordered on
vertigo and deafness. But there it was to take or leave.

Taken with good heart, after a thorough testing of tackle (the motto
being "Hold on for dear life"), the big Butcher failed to attract, and
I floundered ashore and sat on a rock before trying again with a
Wilkinson. That trial succeeded, for the line was rushed out and
across some twenty yards. The butt of the rod was then sternly
presented, and thereafter no line of more length than five yards could
be allowed. Every muscle strained, I literally leaned back solidly
against the bent rod for a full quarter of an hour, the fish below
meantime moving in circles or sulking. The gaffing was most cleverly
done by the good man who had never left my side, and I staggered out,
backed on to a mossy patch, and sank to ground exhausted and panting.
That capture