To do myself justice, the Herr Dr. Oberhausen and MacAlister, my good comrades, had done the same, and they are professed sea-trout fishers. Nothing but small finnocks had been caught, and we held the place cheaply. Still, finnocks are better than nothing at all, and it was for finnocks that I hoped that afternoon. I carried a light greenheart. My gut was the same drawn stuff that I had been using on the lake. I put on a Yellow Pennell, and cast it into the tumbling water. Tug! A giant fish had me at its mercy. Whir-r-r! The reel screamed. Splash! The great fish left the water. Good-bye! The gut had parted, naturally. My eyes were opened. I soaked a stout cast thoroughly; I bended it to my line. I tied on another Pennell; I threw it in. Tug! Whir-r-r! Splash! as before; but the gut held, and we had at it. The fish did what he pleased with me. In that rush of water he ran out line in the manner of the fabled tarpon. I may have played him for fifteen seconds. Then he went into the seaweed—the bright, golden, tough, abundant seaweed—and then I went in after him and recovered my fly with some difficulty. And there my sport ended for the day, for not another rise had I. This was not to be borne. Next day, rather earlier on the ebb, I was there with a double-handed split-
