I shall never forget one day's sport. The morning was warm, and in fact somewhat sultry; and swarms of insects arose on my path. As every gullet was gushing with water, it behoved me to ascend, even beyond my former travel, to the purest streams or feeders, which ran unseen, in general, among the hills. The clouds, as I hurried on my way, began to gather up into a dense and darkening awning. There was a slight and somewhat hesitating breeze on the hill-side, for I could see the heath and bracken bending under it, but it was scarcely perceptible beneath. This, however, I regretted the less, as the mountain torrent to which I had attached myself was too precipitous and streamy in its course to require the aids of wind and curl to forward the sport. Let the true fisher--for he only can appreciate the circumstances--say what must have been my delight, my rapture, as I proceeded to prepare my rod, open out my line over the brink of a gullet, along which the water rushed like porter through the neck of a bottle, and at the lower extremity of which the froth tilted round and round in most inviting eddies! Here there was no springing of trouts to the surface, nor coursing of alarmed shoals beneath. The darkened heaven was reflected back by the darker water; and the torrent kept dashing, tumbling, and brawling along under the impulse and agitation of a swiftly ebbing flood. I had hit upon that very critical shade, betwixt the high brown and soft blue colour, which every mountain angler knows well how to appreciate; and I felt as if every turn and entanglement of my line formed a barrier betwixt me and paradise. The very first throw was successful, ere the bait had travelled twice round the eddy at the bottom of the gullet. When trouts in such circumstances take at all, they do so in good earnest. They are all on the outlook for food, and dash at the swiftly-descending bait with a freedom and good-will which almost uniformly insures their capture. And here, for the benefit of bait fishers, it may be proper to mention, that success depends not so much on the choosing and preparing of the worms--though these undoubtedly are important points--as in the throwing and drawing, or rather dragging of the line. In such mountain rapids, the trout always turn their heads to the current, and never gorge the bait till they have placed themselves lower down in the water; consequently, by pulling _downwards_, two manifest advantages are gained: the trout is often hooked without gorging, or even biting at all, and the current assists the fisher in landing his prize, which, in such circumstances, may be done in an instant, and at a single pull. But to return. My success on this occasion was altogether beyond precedent: at every turn and wheel of the winding torrent, I was sure to grace the green turf or sandy channel with another and another yellow-sided and brightly-spotted half-pounder. The very sheep, as they travelled along