and the bottom began to quake, Still the footing was hard enough, and nothing happened; and again the big fish rose just out of casting distance. One more step would do it; and what danger could possibly be added in so small a distance? So one more step was taken, and--without a second's warning the crust broke. Only one thing saved the fisher; instinctively, as he sank through the fetid slime, he threw himself on his back, striking vigorously with his arms. But it took many an agonised, almost despairing, stroke ere his legs _sucked_ out of that death trap. Nor, as long as there was water shoreward deep enough to swim in, did he again attempt to wade. His rod had not been abandoned--which was matter for gratulation; but, soaked to the skin, chilled to the very marrow, and reeking with the stench of putrid swamp, it was no thing of joy that day to make his devious way home over an unfamiliar hill that was wrapped in impenetrable folds of dense mist. There is an origin, likely enough, for the Water-Bull. A great volume of marsh-gas, bursting from the bottom of a swampy loch, might be seen some still, foggy day, or in the uncertain evening light, suddenly to boil up on the surface far out. The wallowing upheaval caused by the belching gas would readily suggest the part-seen back or side of some formless monster, whose gambols were agitating the water and {235}causing billows to surge upon the weed-fringed shore; and a bittern's hollow boom quivering on the still night air, would easily be construed by the credulous and ignorant as the bellow of this fearsome monster that they thought they had seen wheeling and plunging. If he was anything more substantial than gas, what a beast he would have been to troll for! One should not forget that it was by the shore of Cauldshiels Loch that Scott wrote the exquisitely sad lines that yet so vividly paint the scene: "The sun upon the Weirdlaw Hill, In Eterick's vale is sinking sweet; The westland wind is hushed and still, The lake lies sleeping at my feet. Yet not the landscape to mine eye Bears those bright hues that once it bore; Though evening with her richest dye, Flames o'er the hill of Ettrick's shore. With listless look along the plain, I see Tweed's silver current glide, And coldly mark the holy fane Of Melrose rise in ruined pride. The quiet lake, the balmy air, The hill, the stream, the tower, the tree, Are they still such as once they were, Or is the dreary change in me?