Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/621

 23, 1863.] said the manager, “I’ve seen him come quietly out, about five or six o’clock in the morning, leaving a’ his friends in their beds, and gang up the burn wi’ the liester or the fishing-rod for a few hours’ sport by himsel’. Seeing him alane in this way, he seemed to me at times perfectly sick o’ the trouble o’ company, and glad to get away into the glen. But when friends cam’, what could he do? He had to act like a friend. And alang wi’ that he was naturally an easy man concernin’ farm matters; so that ye may say baith ends o’ the meal-bag were open at ance.”

The letters he received daily also caused him much expense. He sometimes received twenty in a day, and these would cost him eightpence or tenpence each. How could an “easy man” keep free of debt under such circumstances? He himself told a gentleman, still living, that the postages he had to pay for letters received were almost ruinous in amount. After the publishing of any new work, congratulatory epistles showered upon him from all quarters, most of them written by people he never saw or heard of, and the postages were, of course, all unpaid.

Although the sun was shining softly on the hills when we reached St. Mary’s Loch, it had a dull, black appearance we were scarcely prepared for; and we concluded that the double swan and shadow, and the rhythmical remark as to not a feature of the hills being in the mirror slighted, must have been pictures of the imagination; but next morning we found the poet—to use a favourite sentence of the Parisian garçons—all right.

Roused from sleep about seven o’clock, by the shouting of two or three voices and the yelping of dogs, we hurriedly drew up our blind, and, with some ,exitementexcitement [sic] witnessed a spanking chase up the hill-side before our window, by two sheep-dogs after a hare. But puss, after one or two turns, left her loud-voiced assailants nonplussed. The morning was bright, and, in a few minutes, we were out into the sunlight, with the lake little more than a hundred paces in front of us.

Arcadia, and all our dreams of Arcadia, could never present a scene more peaceful, fresh, and beautiful than the one before us. All the hills were bathed in sunlight, their soft outlines blending with the semi-transparent and snowy cloud-spots that here and there lay as if resting on their summits; the rills were like crystal; the verdure was smooth and green, and spotted on slopes and angles with snowy sheep; and, clear and distinct as the scene itself, the lake, as if revealing fairyland, reflected all the hills and sunlight before us, but causing everything to look more rich and soft than it did in the upper element. It was a sight never to be forgotten:

Our friend proposed a row across the lake in his boat, which we readily agreed to. In crossing we learned that a retired officer of the navy had, a few years previously, taken soundings all over the lake; and his report brought out an average depth of one hundred and fifty feet all along the lake’s centre. This seems a great depth for a sheet of water scarcely a mile in width, and only seven miles in circumference; and especially so when we remember that the general average depth of the Baltic reaches only one hundred and ten feet.

Scotch lakes are, however, mostly all very deep in contrast with their surface measurement,—a natural result where the shores are flanked by large hills. In the Highlands some of the lakes are much deeper than St. Mary’s, the deepest part of Loch Lomond, for instance, being six hundred feet.

The lake is well stocked with fine large trout, perch, eels, and pike; and salmon are occasionally plentiful in its waters, which they enter from the Yarrow. The burns that enter it are also numerously stocked with small trout. From these circumstances the place has for many years been a retreat for a large number of anglers, who, along with enjoying fine sport, find cosy up-putting at Tibbie Shiel’s. In Tibbie’s snug cottage, more “runs,” imaginary and real—for “anglers’ lies,” form a proverbial term in all river-side cottages,—are talked over, than under any roof in Scotland.

In the departed days of salmon-spearing, fine sport was often had in the small waters in the neighbourhood of the lake, and of this sport almost every shepherd and farmer was fond, and none more so than Hogg himself. Pike-spearing, in the shallow or breeding-places in St. Mary’s Loch, was also a sport occasionally indulged in; and our friend, who has resided from infancy in the district, gave us an account of a ludicrous onslaught he made upon a large pike he was anxious to secure. He knew the haunt of the giant; and, on a day when the water of the lake was very clear, and well adapted for the sport, he got a shepherd to row the boat, and he was instructed to cause as light a ripple on the water as possible. The fish was lying in the place expected—by the side of a weed-bed, in pretty deep water. The spear was fourteen feet in length; and, certain that he could easily reach the fish with it, he struck. But he had reckoned without his host, for he himself followed the spear head-foremost, and entirely disappeared for some seconds. When he came to the surface he wildly caught hold of the boat, but found it impossible to enter without causing it to upset. On seeing this the dull-brained oarsman cried out in a wild accent:

“Lord, maister, ye’ll hae to drown!”

It never occurred to him, until told, to give a stroke or two with the oars by which to bring the boat to the shore. The clearness of the water had caused the mishap; and when a spear-stroke is made and the bottom not reached, the sportsman, of course, follows his instrument in a great hurry.

Our first morning’s visit was to St. Mary’s Kirk, on the hill flanking the north side of the lake: