For when he tired of running,
which was soon, he was as far away as ever. Draw him through the forest
of reeds I could not. At last I did the fatal thing. I took hold of the
line, and then, "plop," as the poet said. He was off. A young sportsman
on the bank who had joined me expressed his artless disappointment. I
cast over the confounded reeds once more. "Splash!"--the old story! I
stuck to the fish, and got him into the watery wood, and then he went
where the lost trout go. No more came on, so I floundered a yard or two
farther, and climbed into a wild-fowl's nest, a kind of platform of
matted reeds, all yellow and faded. The nest immediately sank down deep
into the water, but it stopped somewhere, and I made a cast. The black
water boiled, and the trout went straight down and sulked. I merely held
on, till at last it seemed "time for us to go," and by cautious tugging I
got him through the reedy jungle, and "gruppit him," as the Shepherd
would have said. He was simply but decently wrapped round, from snout to
tail, in very fine water-weeds, as in a garment. Moreover, he was as
black as your hat, quite unlike the comely yellow trout who live on the
gravel in Clearburn. It hardly seemed sensible to get drowned in this
gruesome kind of angling, so, leaving the Lake of Darkness, we made for
Buccleugh, passing the cleugh where the buck was ta'en.
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