CHAPTER VII


The folks we met were awfu' good to Mackenzie Murdoch and me while we
were on tour in yon old days. I've always liked to sit me doon, after
a show, and talk to some of those in the audience, and then it was
even easier than it is the noo. I mind the things we did! There was
the time when we must be fishermen!

It was at Castle Douglas, in the Galloway district, that the landlord
of our hotel asked us if we were fishermen. He said we should be,
since, if we were, there was a loch nearby where the sport was grand.

"Eh, Mac?" I asked him. "Are ye as good a fisherman as ye are a
gowfer?"

"Scarcely so good, Harry," he said, smiling.

"Aweel, ne'er mind that," I said. "We'll catch fish enough for our
supper, for I'm a don with a rod, as you'll see."

Noo, I believed that I was strictly veracious when I said that, even
though I think I had never held a rod in my hand. But I had seen many
a man fishing, and it had always seemed to me the easiest thing in the
world a man could do. So forth we fared together, and found the boat
the landlord had promised us, and the tackle, and the bait. I'll no
say whether we took ought else--'tis none of your affair, you'll ken!
Nor am I making confession to the wife, syne she reads all I write,
whether abody else does so or nicht.