The letting value of these moors and of this water is to-day certainly not less than 1,500l. a year.

Charles Grant had a great and well-deserved reputation for finding a fish in water which other men had fished blank. This was partly because, from long familiarity with the river, he knew all the likeliest casts; partly because he was sure to have at the end of his casting-line just the proper fly for the size of water and condition of weather; and partly because of his quiet, neat-handed manner of dropping his line on the water. There is a story still current on Speyside illustrative of this gift of Charlie in finding a fish where people who rather fancied themselves had failed-a story which Jamie Shanks to this day does not care to hear. Mr. Russel, of the Scotsman, had done his very best from the quick run at the top of the pool of Dalbreck, down to the almost dead-still water at the bottom of that fine stretch, and had found no luck. Jamie Shanks, who was with Mr. Russel as his fisherman, had gone over it to no purpose with a fresh fly. They were grumpishly discussing whether they should give Dalbreck another turn, or go on to Pool-o-Brock, the next pool down stream, when Charles Grant made his appearance and asked the waterside question, 'What luck?' 'No luck at all, Charlie !' was Russel's answer. 'Deevil a rise!' was Shanks's sourer reply. In his demure, purring way, Charles Grant-who in his manner was a duplicate of the late Lord Granville remarked, 'There ought to be a fish come out of that pool.' 'Tak' him out, then!' exclaimed Shanks gruffly. Well, I'll try,' quoth the soft-spoken Charlie; and just at that spot, about forty yards from the head of the pool, where the current slackens and the fish lie awhile before breasting the upper rapid, he hooked a fish. Then it was that Russel, in the genial manner which made provosts swear, remarked, 'Shanks, I advise you to take half year at Mr. Grant's school!' 'Fat for?' inquired Shanks sullenly. To learn to fish!' replied the master of sarcasm of the delicate Scottish variety.

Respectful by nature to their superiors, the honest working folk of Speyside occasionally forget themselves comically in their passionate ardour that a hooked salmon shall be brought to bank. Lord Elgin, now in his Indian satrapy, far away from what Sir Noel Paton in his fine elegy on the late Sir Alexander Gordon Cumming of Altyre called

The rushing thunder of the Spey,

one day hooked a big fish in the 'run' below Polmet.' The fish headed swiftly down stream, his lordship in eager pursuit, but afraid of putting any strain on the line lest the salmon should 'break' him. Down round the bend below the pool and by the Slabs' fish and fisherman sped till the latter was brought up by the sheer rock of Craigellachie. Fortunately a fisherman ferried the Earl across the river to the side on which he was able to follow the fish. On he ran,

keeping up with the fish, under the bridge, along the margin of 'Shanks's Pool,' past the Boat of Fiddoch' pool and the mouth of the tributary; and he was still on the run along the edge of the croft beyond, when he was suddenly confronted by an aged man, who dropped his turnip hoe and ran eagerly to the side of the young nobleman. Old Guthrie could give advice from the experience of a couple of generations as poacher, water-gillie, occasional water-bailiff, and from as extensive and peculiar acquaintance with the river as Sam Weller possessed of London public-houses. And this is what he exclaimed: 'Ma Lord, ma Lord, gin ye dinna check him, that fush will tak ye doun tae Speymouth-deil, but he'll tow ye oot tae sea! Hing intil him, hing intil him!' His lordship exerted himself accordingly, but did not secure the old fellow's approval. Man! man!' Guthrie yelled, 'ye're nae pittin' a twa-ounce strain on him; he's makin' fun o' ye!' The nobleman tried yet harder, yet could not please his relentless critic. 'God forgie me, but ye canna fush worth a damn! Come back on the lan', an' gie him the butt wi' pith!' Thus adjured, his lordship acted at last with vigour; the sage, having gaffed the fish, abated his wrath, and, as the salmon was being wetted,' tendered his respectful apologies.

In my time there have been three lairds of Arndilly, a beautiful Speyside estate which is margined by several miles of fishing water hardly inferior to any throughout the long run of the river. Many a man, far away now from 'bonnie Arndilly' and the hoarse murmur of the river's roll over its rugged bed, recalls in wistful recollection the swift yet smooth flow of 'the Dip;' the thundering rush of Spey against the Red Craig,' in the deep strong water at the foot of which the big red fish leap like trout when the mellowness of the autumn is tinting into glow of russet and crimson the trees which hang on the steep bank above; the smooth, restful glide into the long oily reach of the 'Lady's How,' in which a fisherman may spend to advantage the livelong day and then not leave it fished out; the turbulent half pool, half stream, of the Piles,' which always holds large fish lying behind the great stones, or in the dead water under the daisy-sprinkled bank on which the tall beeches cast their shadows; the 'Bulwark Pool;' the 'Three Stones,' where the grilse show their silver sides in the late May evenings; Gilmour's' and 'Carnegie's,' the latter now, alas! spoiled by gravel; the quaintly named Tam Mear's Crook' and the 'Spout o' Cobblepot;' and then the dark sullen swirls of Sourdon,' the deepest pool of Spey.

·

The earliest of the three Arndilly lairds of my time was the Colonel, a handsome, generous man of the old school, who was as good over High Leicestershire as he was over his own moors and on his own water, and who, while still in the prime of life, died of cholera abroad. Good in the saddle and with the salmon rod, the Colonel was perhaps best behind a gun, with which he was not less

deadly among the salmon of the Spey than among the grouse of Benaigen. His relative, old Lord Saltoun, was hard put to it once in the 'Lady's How' with a thirty-pound salmon which he had hooked foul, and which, in its full vigour, was taking all manner of liberties with him, making spring after spring clean out of the water. The beast was so rebellious and strong that the old lord found it harder to contend with than the Frenchmen who fought so stoutly with him for the possession of Hougomont. The Colonel, fowling-piece in hand, was watching the struggle, and, seeing that Lord Saltoun was getting the worst of it, awaited his opportunity when the big salmon's tail was in the air after a spring, and, firing in the nick of time, cut the fish's spine just above the tail, hardly marking it elsewhere. The Colonel occasionally fished the river with cross-lines, which are still legal, although their use is now considered rather the 'Whitechapel game.' He resorted to the cross-lines, not in greed for fish, but for the sake of the shooting practice they afforded him. When the hooked fish were struggling, and in their struggles showing their tails out of water, he several times shot two right and left, breaking the spine in each case close to the tail.

The Colonel was succeeded by his brother, who had been a planter in Jamaica before coming to the estate on the death of his brother. Hardly was he home when he contested the county unsuccessfully on the old never-say-die Protectionist platform against the father of the present Duke of Fife; on the first polling day of which contest I acquired a black eye and a bloody nose in the market square of a local village at the hands of some gutter lads, with whose demand that I should take the Tory rosette out of my bonnet I had declined to comply. Later, this gentleman became an assiduous fisher of men as a lay preacher, but he was as keen after salmon as he was after sinners. He hooked and played-and gaffed-the largest salmon I have ever heard of being caught in Spey by an angler-a fish weighing forty-six pounds. The actual present laird of Arndilly is a lady, but in her son are perpetuated the fishing instincts of his forbears.

My reminiscences of Spey and Speyside are drawing to an end, and I now with natural diffidence approach a great theme. Every Speyside man will realise from this exordium that I am about to treat of Geordie.' It is quite understood throughout lower Speyside that it is the moral support which Geordie accords to Craigellachie Bridge, in the immediate vicinity of which he lives, that chiefly maintains that structure; and that if he were to withdraw that support, its towers and roadway would incontinently collapse into the depths of the sullen pool spanned by the graceful erection. The best of men are not universally popular, and it must be said that there are those who cast on Geordie the aspersion of being 'some thrawn,' for which the equivalent in south-country language is

perhaps a trifle cross-grained.' These, however, are envious people, who are jealous of Geordie's habitual association with lords and dukes, and who resent the trivial stiffness which is no doubt apparent in his manner to ordinary people for the first few days after the illustrious persons referred to have reluctantly permitted him to withdraw from them the light of his countenance. For my own part, I have found Geordie, all things considered, to be wonderfully affable. That his tone is patronising I do not deny; but then there is surely a joy in being patronised by the factotum of a duke.

I have never been quite sure, nor have I ever dared to ask Geordie, whether he considers the duke to be his patron, or whether he regards himself as the patron of that eminent nobleman. From the 'aucht-and-forty daugh' of Strathbogie to the Catholic Braes of Glenlivat, where fifty years ago the 'sma' stills' reeked in every moorland hollow, across to beautiful Kinrara, and down Spey to the fertile Braes of Enzie, his Grace is the benevolent despot of a thriving tenantry, who have good cause to regard him with esteem and gratitude. The duke is a masterful man, whom no factor need attempt to lead by the nose; but on the margin of Spey, from the blushred crags of Cairntie down to the head of tide water, he owns his centurion in Geordie, who taught him to throw his first line when already he was a minister of the Crown, and who, as regards aught appertaining to salmon fishing, saith unto his Grace, Do this, and he doeth it.

Geordie is a loyal subject, and when a few years ago he had the opportunity of seeing her Majesty during her momentary halt at Elgin station, he paid her the compliment of describing her as a 'sonsie wife.' But the heart-loyalty of the honest fellow goes out in all its tender yet imperious fulness towards the Castle family, to most of the members of which, of both sexes, he has taught the science and practice of killing salmon. Hint the faintest shadow of disparagement of any member of that noble and worthy house, and you make a life enemy of Geordie. On no other subject is he particularly touchy, save one-the gameness and vigour of the salmon of Spey. Make light of the fighting virtues of Spey fish-exalt above them the horn of the salmon of Tay, Ness, or Tweed-and Geordie loses his temper on the instant, and overwhelms you with the strongest language. There is a tradition that among Geordie's remote forbears was one of Cromwell's Ironsides, who on the march from Aberdeen to Inverness fell in love with a Speyside lass of the period, and who, abandoning his Ironside appellation of 'Hew-Agag-in-Pieces,' adopted the surname which Geordie now bears. This strain of ancestry may account for Geordie's smooth yet peremptory skill as a disciplinarian. It devolves upon him during the rod-fishing season to assign to each person of the fishing contingent his or her particular stretch of water, and to tell off to each as guide one of his assistant attendants.

It is a great treat to find Geordie in a garrulous humour, and to

listen to one of his salmon-fishing stories, told always in the broadest of north-country Doric. His sense of humour is singularly keen, notwithstanding that he is a Scot; and it is not in his nature to minimise his own share in the honour and glory of the incident he may relate. One of Geordie's stories is vividly in my recollection, and may appropriately conclude my reminiscences of Speyside and its folk. There was a stoup of Benrinnes' on the mantelpiece, and a free-drawing pipe in Geordie's mouth. His subject was the one on which he can be most eloquent-an incident of the salmon-fishing season, on which the worthy man delivered himself as follows:

'Twa or three seasons back I was attendin' Leddy Carline whan she was fushin' that gran' pool at the brig o' Fochabers. She's a fine fusher, Leddy Carline: faith, she may weel be, for I taucht her mysel'. She hookit a saumon aboot the midst o' the pool, an' for a while it gied gran' sport; loupin' and tumblin', an' dairtin' up the watter an' doon the watter at sic a speed as keepit her leddyship muvin' gey fast tae keep abriesht o't. Weel, this kin' o' wark, an' a ticht line, began for tae tak' the spunk oot o' the saumon, an' I was thinkin' it was a quieston o' a few meenits whan I wad be in him wi’ the gaff; but my birkie, near han' spent though he was, had a canny bit dodge up the sleeve o' him. He made a bit whamlin' run, an' deil tak me gin he didna jam himself intil a neuk atween twa rocks, an' there the dour beggar bade an' sulkit. Weel, her leddyship keepit aye a steady drag on him, an' she gied him the butt wi' power; but she cudna get the beast tae budge-no, nae sae muckle as the breadth o' my thoomb-nail. Deil a word said Leddy Carline tae me for a gey while, as she vrought an' vrought tae gar the saumon quit his neuk. But she cam nae speed wi' him; an' at last she says, says she, "Geordie, I can make nothing of him: what in the world is to be done?" "Gie him a shairp upward yark, my leddy," says I; "there canna be muckle strength o' resistance left in him by this time!" Weel, she did as I tellt her I will say this for Leddy Carline, that she's aye biddable. But, rugg her hardest, the fush stuck i' the neuk as gin he waur a bit o' the solid rock, an' her Leddyship was becomin' gey an' exhaustit. "Take the rod yourself, Geordie," says she, " and try what you can do; I freely own the fish is too many for me." Weel, I gruppit the rod, an' I gied a shairp, steady, upward drag; an' up the brute cam, clean spent. He hadna been sulkin' aifter aa'; he had been fairly wedged atween the twa rocks, for whan I landit him, lo an' behold! he was bleedin' like a pig, an' there was a muckle gash i' the side o' him, that the rock had torn whan I draggit him by main force up an' oot. The taikle was stoot, ye'll obsairve, or else he be tae hae broken me; but tak my word for't, Geordie is no the man for tae lippen tae feckless taikle.

'Weel, I hear maist things; an' I was tellt that same nicht hoo at the denner-table Leddy Carline relatit the haill adventur', an'