Like most Scottish lakes, Loch Spellanderie is not wide, and Cleg manfully ploughed his way across without fear of the result. For he had often swam much further at the piers of Leith and Trinity, as well as much longer in the many lochs which are girt like a girdle of jewels round about his native city. But presently his clothes began to tire him, and long ere the dark line of the trees on the further side approached, he was longing to be on shore again. Sometimes also he seemed to hear the voices of men before him, though, owing the deep shadow of the trees, he could see no one. Cleg's arms began to ache terribly, and his feet to drag lower and lower. The power went out of his strokes. He called out lustily for the men to wait for him. He could hear something like a boat moving along the edge of the reeds, rustling through them with a sough as it went. Suddenly Cleg saw something dark swimming slowly along the surface of the water. He struck towards it fearlessly. It was a piece of wood moved, as it seemed, by some mysterious power from the shore. Cleg called out again for the men whose voices he had heard to wait for him. But, instead of waiting, they promptly turned and fled. Cleg could hear them crashing like bullocks through the briars and hazels of the underbrush. However, he was not far from the land now, and in a minute more he felt his feet rest upon the shelving gravel of the lake shore. Cleg brought the wedge-shaped piece of wood with him. He found upon holding it close to his eyes in the dim light, that a double row of hooks was attached to it beneath, and that there were half a dozen good trout leaping and squirming upon different sides of it. Cleg had no notion of the nature of the instrument he had captured. Nor indeed had he the least idea that he had disturbed certain very honest men in a wholly illegal operation. He only shook himself like a water-dog and proceeded to run through the wood at an easy trot, for the purpose of getting some heat back into his chilled limbs. As he ran his thoughts returned often to Loch Spellanderie, and each time he cracked his thumbs with glee. "I showed her, I'm thinkin'!" he said aloud. Suddenly Cleg found himself out of the wood. He came upon a slight fence of wire hung upon cloven undressed posts, over which ran the shallow trench of the railway to Port Andrew. Cleg knew himself on sure ground again so soon as he came to something so familiar as the four-foot way. He felt as if he had a friend in each telegraph post, and that the shining perspective of the parallel metals stretched on and on into direct connection with Princes Street Station and the North Bridge tram lines which ran almost to the Canongate Head. He was, as it were, at home. The boy hesitated a little which way to turn. But ultimately he decided that he would take the left hand. So Cleg sped along the permanent way towards Port Andrew at the rate of six miles an hour.