We used, indeed, to have great days with perch at
Faldonside, on the land which Sir Walter Scott was always so anxious to
buy from Mr. Nichol Milne. Almost the last entry in his diary, at
Naples, breathes this unutterable hope. He had deluded himself into
believing that his debts were paid, and that he could soon "speak a word
to young Nichol Milne." The word, of course, was never spoken, and the
unsupplanted laird used to let us fish for his perch to our hearts'
desire. Never was there such slaughter. The corks which we used as
floats were perpetually tipping, bobbing, and disappearing, and then the
red-finned perch would fly out on to dry land. Here I once saw two corks
go down, two anglers haul up, and one perch, attached to both hooks,
descend on the grassy bank. My brother and I filled two baskets once,
and strung dozens of other perch on a stick.
But this was not legitimate business. Not till we came to fly-fishing
were we really entered at the sport, and this initiation took place, as
it chanced, beside the very stream where I was first shown a trout. It
is a charming piece of water, amber-coloured and clear, flowing from the
Morvern hills under the limes of an ancient avenue--trees that have long
survived the house to which, of old, the road must have led.
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