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Later, this gentleman became an assiduous fisher of men as a lay preacher, but he was as keen after salmon as he was after sinners. He hooked and played and gaffed the largest salmon I have ever heard of being caught in Spey by an angler a fish weighing forty-six pounds. The actual present laird of Arndilly is a lady, but in her son are perpetuated the fishing instincts of his forbears.
While Dan steered the boat R. C. got out on the bow and gaffed the kite. I watched the tuna tails standing like half-simitars out of the smooth, colored water. The sun was setting in a golden haze spotted by pink clouds. The wind, if anything, was softer than ever; in fact, we could not feel it unless we headed the boat into it.
I was armed with the regular club with which the boat-pullers killed the wounded seals gaffed aboard by the hunters. It was only a foot and a half long, and in my superb ignorance I never dreamed that the club used ashore when raiding the rookeries measured four to five feet. The cows lumbered out of my way, and the distance between me and the bull decreased.
Why, Daniel's piazza on his new house cost him $175, and his wife's last hospital bill was $250, and just one dentist alone gaffed him sixty-five dollars for straightening his oldest girl's teeth!" "Not sixty-five?" gasped the Young Electrician in acute dismay. "Why, two of my kids have got to have it done! Oh, come now you're joshing!" "I'm not either joshing," cried the Traveling Salesman.
At another pool I tried again, and almost at the first cast hooked an eighteen-pounder, which Anders gaffed after about twenty-minutes' play. We felt quite jolly now, although it rained harder than ever, and we went on our way rejoicing Anders' countenance reduced to its naturally short proportions.
Ken had a glimpse of a giant next him, literally pitchforking a Turk out of the trench, lifting him like a gaffed salmon on the end of his bayonet. It was soon over, but this time there were very few prisoners. Almost every man in the trench, with the exception of about a dozen who had bolted at the first onset, was killed.
"Hooray!" yelled Junkie, now fairly aflame, as he jumped like the fish, flourished the big hook round his head, and gaffed Quin by the lappet of his coat! "Have a care, you spalpeen," shouted the Irishman, grasping the excited youngster by the collar and disengaging himself from the hook. "Sure it might have been me nose as well as me coat, an' a purty objec' that would have made me!"
Dropping the buoy he had just gaffed, Percy took the oars and began rowing hard toward the sound, which gradually grew louder. The fog came on with a rush, sliding over them like an avalanche. It was hardly possible to see beyond the tips of the oar-blades. "Lucky we can hear that surf!" said Percy, comfortably. "But strange it sounds so loud and so near." Now it was close ahead.
Thus adjured, his lordship acted at last with vigour; the sage, having gaffed the fish, abated his wrath, and, as the salmon was being "wetted," tendered his respectful apologies. In my time there have been three lairds of Arndilly, a beautiful Speyside estate which is margined by several miles of fishing water hardly inferior to any throughout the long run of the river.
Before he had been in the water twenty minutes the old lord was in a fish; his gillie, old Dallas, who could throw a fine line in spite of the whisky, gaffed it scientifically, and I was sent home rejoicing with a 15 lb. salmon for my mother and a half-sovereign for myself wherewith to buy a trouting rod and reel.
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