e hook, and given it a knock on the head, I
rushed down with it into the cabin, where my father and three others
were dining. Throwing my fish down on to the table, I delightedly
exclaimed, "Look what I have caught, father; isn't it a lovely fish?" I
could not understand the roars of laughter which followed, as one of the
party, with a horrified glance at my capture, shouted, "Take it away,
take it away!" _Non redolet sed olet_. Oddly enough, although after this
I caught any amount of real live fish, I never realised until months
afterwards how miserably I had been taken in by the boat's crew on that
eventful night.

Not long afterwards, whilst fishing with a worm just below the falls at
Macomber, in the Highlands, I made what was for a small boy a remarkable
catch of sea trout. I forget the exact number, but I know I had to take
them back in sacks. They were "running" at the time, and it was very
pretty to see them continually jumping up the seven-foot ladder out of
the Spean into the Lochy. Underneath this ladder, where the water boiled
and seethed in a thousand eddies, hundreds of trout lay ready to jump up
the fall. Into this foaming torrent I threw my heavily leaded bait. No
sooner was the worm in the water than it was seized by a fine sea trout.
Some of them were nearly two pounds; and although I had a strong
casting-line, they were often most difficult to land, for a series of
small cataracts dashed down amongst huge rocks and slippery boulders,
until, a hundred feet below, the calm, deep Macomber pool was reached.
As the fish, when hooked, would often dash down this foaming torrent
into the pool below, they gave a tremendous amount of play before they
were landed. There was an element of danger about it, too, as a false
step might have led to ugly complications amongst the rocks, over which
the water came pouring down at the rate of ten miles an hour. A boy of
twelve years old, as I was then, would not have stood a chance in that
roaring torrent. A terrible accident happened here a few years
afterwards. A party went from the house, where I always stayed, to fish
at Macomber Falls. There were four ladies and two men. Whilst they were
sitting eating their luncheon at this romantic spot, an argument arose
as to whether a man falling into the seething pool below the fall would
be drowned or not. The water was only about two feet deep; but the place
was a miniature whirlpool, and, once started down the pent-in torrent