None of the greater rivers of Scotland makes so much haste to reach the
ocean as does the turbulent and impatient Spey. From its parent lochlet
in the bosom of the Grampians it speeds through Badenoch, the country
of Cluny MacPherson, the chief of Clan Chattan, a region to this day
redolent of memories of the '45. It abates its hurry as its current
skirts the grave of the beautiful Jean Maxwell, Duchess of Gordon, who
raised the 92nd Highlanders by giving a kiss with the King's shilling
to every recruit, and who now since many long years
Sleeps beneath Kinrara's willow.
But after this salaam of courtesy the river roars and bickers down the
long stretch of shaggy glen which intervenes between the upper and
lower Rocks of Craigellachie, whence the Clan Grant, whose habitation
is this ruggedly beautiful strath, takes its slogan of "Stand fast,
Craigellachie," till it finally sends its headlong torrent shooting
miles out through the salt water of the Moray Firth. In its course of
over a hundred miles its fierce current has seldom tarried; yet now and
again it spreads panting into a long smooth stretch of still water when
wearied momentarily with buffeting the boulders in its broken and
contorted bed; or when a great rock, jutting out into its course,
causes a deep black sullen pool whose sluggish eddy is crested with
masses of yellow foam. Merely as a wayfaring pedestrian I have followed
Spey from its source to its mouth; but my intimacy with it in the
character of a fisherman extends over the five-and-twenty miles of its
lower course, from the confluence of the pellucid Avon at Ballindalloch
to the bridge of Fochabers, the native village of the Captain Wilson
who died so gallantly in the recent fighting in Matabeleland. My first
Spey trout I took out of water at the foot of the cherry orchard below
the sweet-lying cottage of Delfur. My first grilse I hooked and played
with trout tackle in "Dalmunach" on the Laggan water, a pool that is
the rival of "Dellagyl" and the "Holly Bush" for the proud title of the
best pool of lower Spey. My first salmon I brought to the gaff with a
beating heart in that fine swift stretch of water known as "The Dip,"
which connects the pools of the "Heathery Isle" and the "Red Craig,"
and which is now leased by that good fisherman, Mr. Justice North. I
think the Dundurcas water then belonged to the late Mr. Little Gilmour,
the well-known welter-weight who went so well to hounds season after
season from Melton Mowbray, and who was as keen in the water on Spey as
he was over the Leicestershire pastures. A servant of Mr. Little
Gilmour was drowned in the "Two Stones" pool, the next below the "Holly
Bush;" and the next pool below the "Two Stones" is called the
"Beaufort" to this day--named after the present Duke, who took many a
big fish out of it in the days when he used to come to Speyside with
his friend Mr. Little Gilmour.
In those long gone-by days brave old Lord Saltoun, the hero of
Hougomont, resided during the fishing season in the mansion-house of
Auchinroath, on the high ground at the mouth of the Glen of Rothes. One
morning, some five-and-forty years ago, my father drove to breakfast
with the old lord and took me with him. Not caring to send the horse to
the stable, he left me outside in the dogcart when he entered the
house. As I waited rather sulkily--for I was mightily hungry--there
came out on to the doorstep a very queer-looking old person, short of
figure, round as a ball, his head sunk between very high and rounded
shoulders, and with short stumpy legs. He was curiously attired in a
whole-coloured suit of gray; a droll-shaped jacket the great collar of
which reached far up the back of his head, surmounted a pair of
voluminous breeches which suddenly tightened at the knee. I imagined
him to be the butler in morning dishabille; and when he accosted me
good-naturedly, asking to whom the dogcart and myself belonged, I
answered him somewhat shortly and then ingenuously suggested that he
would be doing me a kindly act if he would go and fetch me out a hunk
of bread and meat, for I was enduring tortures of hunger.
Then he swore, and that with vigour and fluency, that it was a shame
that I should have been left outside; called a groom and bade me alight
and come indoors with him. I demurred--I had got the paternal
injunction to remain with the horse and cart. "I am master here!"
exclaimed the old person impetuously; and with further strong language
he expressed his intention of rating my father soundly for not having
brought me inside along with himself. Then a question occurred to me,
and I ventured to ask, "Are you Lord Saltoun?" "Of course I am,"
replied the old gentleman; "who the devil else should I be?" Well, I
did not like to avow what I felt, but in truth I was hugely
disappointed in him; for I had just been reading Siborne's _Waterloo_,
and to think that this dumpy old fellow in the duffle jacket that came
up over his ears was the valiant hero who had held Hougomont through
cannon fire and musketry fire and hand-to-hand bayonet fighting on the
day of Waterloo while the post he was defending was ablaze, and who had
actually killed Frenchmen with his own good sword, was a severe
disenchantment. When I had breakfasted he asked leave of my father to
let me go with him to the waterside, promising to send me home safely
later in the day. When he was in Spey up to the armpits--for the "Holly
Bush" takes deep wading from the Dundurcas side--the old lord looked
even droller than he had done on the Auchinroath doorstep, and I could
not reconcile him in the least to my Hougomont ideal. He was delighted
when I opened on him with that topic, and he told me with great spirit
of the vehemence with which his brother-officer Colonel Macdonnell, and
his men forced the French soldiers out of the Hougomont courtyard, and
how big Sergeant Graham closed the door against them by main force of
muscular strength. 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. Lord Saltoun was
the first lord I ever met, and I have never known one since whom I have
liked half so well.
Spey is a river which insists on being distinctive. She mistrusts the
stranger. He may be a good man on Tweed or Tay, but until he has been
formally introduced to Spey and been admitted to her acquaintance, she
is chary in according him her favours. She is no flighty coquette, nor
is she a prude; but she has her demure reserves, and he who would stand
well with her must ever treat her with consideration and respect. She
is not as those facile demi-mondaine streams, such as the Helmsdale or
the Conon, which let themselves be entreated successfully by the chance
comer on the first jaunty appeal. You must learn the ways of Spey
before you can prevail with her, and her ways are not the ways of other
rivers. It was in vain that the veteran chief of southern fishermen,
the late Francis Francis, threw his line over Spey in the _veni, vidi,
vici_ manner of one who had made Usk and Wye his potsherd, and who over
the Hampshire Avon had cast his shoe. Russel, the famous editor of the
_Scotsman_, the Delane of the north country, who, pen in hand, could
make a Lord Advocate squirm, and before whose gibe provosts and bailies
trembled, who had drawn out leviathan with a hook from Tweed, and
before whom the big fish of Forth could not stand--even he, brilliant
fisherman as he was, could "come nae speed ava" on Spey, as the old
Arndilly water-gillie quaintly worded it.
Yet Russel of the _Scotsman_ was perhaps the most whole-souled salmon
fisher of his own or any other period. His piscatorial aspirations
extended beyond the grave. Who that heard it can ever forget the
peroration, slightly profane perhaps, but entirely enthusiastic, of his
speech on salmon fishing at a Tweedside dinner? "When I die," he
exclaimed in a fine rapture, "should I go to heaven, I will fish in the
water of life with a fly dressed with a feather from the wing of an
angel; should I be unfortunately consigned to another destination, I
shall nevertheless hope to angle in Styx with the worm that never
dieth." To his editorial successor Spey was a trifle more gracious than
she had been to Russel; but she did not wholly open her heart to this
neophyte of her stream, serving him up in the pool of Dellagyl with the
ugliest, blackest, gauntest old cock-salmon of her depths, owning a
snout like the prow of an ancient galley.
Spey exacts from those who would fish her waters with success a
peculiar and distinctive method of throwing their line, which is known
as the "Spey cast." In vain has Major Treherne illustrated the
successive phases of the "Spey cast" in the fishing volume of the
admirable Badminton series. It cannot be learned by diagrams; no man,
indeed, can become a proficient in it who has not grown up from
childhood in the practice of it. Yet its use is absolutely
indispensable to the salmon angler on the Spey. Rocks, trees, high
banks, and other impediments forbid resort to the overhead cast. The
essence and value of the Spey cast lies in this--that his line must
never go behind the caster; well done, the cast is like the dart from a
howitzer's mouth of a safety rocket to which a line is attached. To
watch it performed, strongly yet easily, by a skilled hand is a liberal
education in the art of casting; the swiftness, sureness, low
trajectory, and lightness of the fall of the line, shot out by a
dexterous swish of the lifting and propelling power of the strong yet
supple rod, illustrate a phase at once beautiful and practical of the
poetry of motion. Among the native salmon fishermen of Speyside,
_quorum ego parva pars fui,_ there are two distinct manners which may
be severally distinguished as the easy style and the masterful style.
The disciples of the easy style throw a fairly long line, but their aim
is not to cover a maximum distance. What they pride themselves on is
precise, dexterous, and, above all, light and smooth casting. No fierce
switchings of the rod reveal their approach before they are in sight;
like the clergyman of Pollok's _Course of Time_ they love to draw
rather than to drive. Of the masterful style the most brilliant
exponent is a short man, but he is the deepest wader in Spey. I believe
his waders fasten, not round his waist, but round his neck. I have seen
him in a pool, far beyond his depth, but "treading water" while
simultaneously wielding a rod about four times the length of himself,
and sending his line whizzing an extraordinary distance. The resolution
of his attack seems actually to hypnotise salmon into taking his fly;
and, once hooked, however hard they may fight for life, they are doomed
fish.
Ah me! These be gaudy, flaunting, flashy days! Our sober Spey, in the
matter of salmon fly-hooks, is gradually yielding to the garish
influence of the times. Spey salmon now begin to allow themselves to be
captured by such indecorous and revolutionary fly-hooks as the "Canary"
and the "Silver Doctor." Jaunty men in loud suits of dittoes have come
into the north country, and display fly-books that vie in the
variegated brilliancy of their contents with a Dutch tulip bed. We
staunch adherents to the traditional Spey blacks and browns, we who
have bred Spey cocks for the sake of their feathers, and have sworn
through good report and through evil report by the pig's down or Berlin
wool for body, the Spey cock for hackle, and the mallard drake for
wings, have jeered at the kaleidoscopic fantasticality of the leaves of
their fly-books turned over by adventurers from the south country and
Ireland; and have sneered at the notion that a self-respecting Spey
salmon would so far demoralise himself as to be allured by a miniature
presentation of Liberty's shop-window. But the salmon has not regarded
the matter from our conservative point of view; and now we, too,
ruefully resort to the "canary" as a dropper when conditions of
atmosphere and water seem to favour that gaudy implement. And it must
be owned that even before the "twopence-coloured" gentry came among us
from distant parts, we, the natives, had been side-tracking from the
exclusive use of the old-fashioned sombre flies into the occasional use
of gayer yet still modest "fancies." Of specific Spey hooks in favour
at the present time the following is, perhaps, a fairly correct and
comprehensive list: purple king, green king, black king, silver heron,
gold heron, black dog, silver riach, gold riach, black heron, silver
green, gold green, Lady Caroline, carron, black fancy, silver spale,
gold spale, culdrain, dallas, silver thumbie, Sebastopol, Lady Florence
March, gold purpie, and gled (deadly in "snawbree"). The Spey cock--a
cross between the Hamburg cock and the old Scottish mottled hen--was
fifty years ago bred all along Speyside expressly for its feathers,
used in dressing salmon flies; but the breed is all but extinct now, or
rather, perhaps, has been crossed and re-crossed out of recognition. It
is said, however, to be still maintained in the parish of Advie, and
when the late Mr. Bass had the Tulchan shootings and fishings his head
keeper used to breed and sell Spey cocks.
Probably the most extensive collection of salmon fly-hooks ever made
was that which belonged to the late Mr. Henry Grant of Elchies, a
property on which is some of the best water in all the run of Spey. His
father was a distinguished Indian civil servant and of later fame as an
astronomer; and his elder brother, Mr. Grant of Carron, was one of the
best fishermen that ever played a big fish in the pool of Dellagyl.
Henry Grant himself had been a keen fisherman in his youth, and when,
after a chequered and roving life in South Africa and elsewhere, he
came into the estate, he set himself to build up a representative
collection of salmon flies for all waters and all seasons. His father
had brought home a large and curious assortment of feathers from the
Himalayas; Mr. Grant sent far and wide for further supplies of suitable
and distinctive material, and then he devoted himself to the task of
dressing hundred after hundred of fly-hooks of every known pattern and
of every size, from the great three-inch hook for heavy spring water to
the dainty little "finnock" hook scarcely larger than a trout fly. A
suitable receptacle was constructed for this collection from the timber
of the "Auld Gean Tree of Elchies"--the largest of its kind in all
Scotland--whose trunk had a diameter of nearly four feet and whose
branches had a spread of over twenty yards. The "Auld Gean Tree" fell
into its dotage and was cut down to the strains of a "lament," with
which the wail and skirl of the bagpipes drowned the noise of the
woodmen's axes. Out of the wood of the "Auld Gean Tree" a local
artificer constructed a handsome cabinet with many drawers, in which
were stored the Elchies collection of fly-hooks classified carefully
according to their sizes and kinds. The cabinet stood--and, I suppose,
still stands--in the Elchies billiard-room; but I fear the collection
is sadly diminished, for Henry Grant was the freest-handed of men and
towards the end of his life anybody who chose was welcome to help
himself from the contents of the drawers. Yet no doubt some relics of
this fine collection must still remain; and I hope for his own sake
that Mr. Justice A.L. Smith the present tenant of Elchies, is free of
poor Henry's cabinet.
It is a popular delusion that Speyside men are immortal; this is true
only of distillers. But it is a fact that their longevity is
phenomenal. If Dr. Ogle had to make up the population returns of Strath
Spey he could not fail to be profoundly astonished by the comparative
blankness of the mortality columns. Frederick the Great, when his
fellows were rather hanging back in the crisis of a battle, stung them
with the biting taunt, "Do you wish to live for ever?" If his
descendant of the present day were to address the same question to the
seniors of Speyside, they would probably reply, "Your Majesty, we ken
that we canna live for ever; but, faith, we mak' a gey guid attempt!" A
respected relative of mine died a few years ago at the age of
eighty-five. Had he been a Southron, he would have been said to have
died full of years; but of my relative the local paper remarked in a
touching obituary notice that he "was cut off prematurely in the midst
of his mature prime." When I was young, Speyside men mostly shuffled
off this mortal coil by being upset from their gigs when driving home
recklessly from market with "the maut abune the meal;" but the railways
have done away in great measure with this cause of death. Nowadays the
centenarians for the most part fall ultimate victims to paralysis. In
the south it is understood, I believe, that the third shock is fatal;
but a Speyside man will resist half a dozen shocks before he succumbs,
and has been known to walk to the kirk after having endured even a
greater number of attacks.
Among the senior veterans of our riverside I may venture to name two
most worthy men and fine salmon fishers. Although both have now wound
in their reels and unspliced their rods, one of them still lives among
us hale and hearty. "Jamie" Shanks of Craigellachie is, perhaps, the
father of the water. He himself is reticent as to his age and there are
legends on the subject which lack authentication. It is, however, a
matter of tradition that Jamie was out in the '45; and that, cannily
returning home when Charles Edward turned back at Derby, he earned the
price of a croft by showing the Duke of Cumberland the ford across Spey
near the present bridge of Fochabers, by which the "butcher duke"
crossed the river on his march to fight the battle of Culloden. It is
also traditioned that Jamie danced round a bonfire in celebration of
the marriage of "bonnie Jean," Duchess of Gordon, an event which
occurred in 1767. Apart from the Dark Ages one thing is certain
regarding Jamie, that the great flood of 1829 swept away his croft and
cottage, he himself so narrowly escaping that he left his watch hanging
on the bed-post, watch and bed-post being subsequently recovered
floating about in the Moray Firth. The greatest honour that can be
conferred on a fisherman--the Victoria Cross of the river--has long
belonged to Jamie; a pool in Spey bears his name, and many a fine
salmon has been taken out of "Jamie Shanks's Pool," the swirling water
of which is almost at the good old man's feet as he shifts the "coo" on
his strip of pasture or watches the gooseberries swelling in his pretty
garden. His fame has long ago gone throughout all Speyside for skill in
the use of the gaff: about eight years ago I was witness of the calm,
swift dexterity with which he gaffed what I believe was his last fish.
In the serene evening of his long day he still finds pleasant
occupation in dressing salmon flies; and if you speak him fair and he
is in good humour "Jamie" may let you have half a dozen as a great
favour.
The other veteran of our river of whom I would say something was that
most worthy man and fine salmon fisher Mr. Charles Grant, the
ex-schoolmaster of Aberlour, better known among us who loved and
honoured the fine old Highland gentleman as "Charlie" Grant. Charlie no
longer lives; but to the last he was hale, relished his modest dram,
and delighted in his quiet yet graphic manner to tell of men and things
of Speyside familiar to him during his long life by the riverside.
Charles Grant was the first person who ever rented salmon water on
Spey. It was about 1838 that he took a lease from the Fife trustees of
the fishing on the right bank from the burn of Aberlour to the burn of
Carron, about four miles of as good water as there is in all the run of
Spey. This water would to-day be cheaply rented at £250 per annum; the
annual rent paid by Charles Grant was two guineas. A few years later a
lease was granted by the Fife trustees of the period of the grouse
shootings of Benrinnes, the wide moorlands of the parishes of Glass,
Mortlach, and Aberlour, including Glenmarkie the best moor in the
county, at a rent of £100 a year with four miles of salmon water on
Spey thrown in. The letting value of these moors and of this water is
to-day certainly not less than £1500 a year.
Charles Grant had a great and well-deserved reputation for finding a
fish in water which other men had fished blank. This was partly because
from long familiarity with the river he knew all the likeliest casts;
partly because he was sure to have at the end of his casting-line just
the proper fly for the size of water and condition of weather; and
partly because of his quiet neat-handed manner of dropping his line on
the water. There is a story still current on Speyside illustrative of
this gift of Charlie in finding a fish where people who rather fancied
themselves had failed--a story which Jamie Shanks to this day does not
care to hear. Mr. Russel of the _Scotsman_ had done his very best from
the quick run at the top of the pool of Dalbreck, down to the almost
dead-still water at the bottom of that fine stretch, and had found no
luck. Jamie Shanks, who was with Mr. Russel as his fisherman, had gone
over it to no purpose with a fresh fly. They were grumpishly discussing
whether they should give Dalbreck another turn or go on to Pool-o-Brock
the next pool down stream, when Charles Grant made his appearance and
asked the waterside question, "What luck?" "No luck at all, Charlie!"
was Russel's answer. "Deevil a rise!" was Shanks's sourer reply. In his
demure purring way Charles Grant--who in his manner was a duplicate of
the late Lord Granville--remarked, "There ought to be a fish come out
of that pool." "Tak' him out, then!" exclaimed Shanks gruffly. "Well,
I'll try," quoth the soft-spoken Charlie; and just at that spot, about
forty yards from the head of the pool, where the current slackens and
the fish lie awhile before breasting the upper rapid, he hooked a fish.
Then it was that Russel in the genial manner which made provosts swear,
remarked, "Shanks, I advise you to take a half year at Mr. Grant's
school!" "Fat for?" inquired Shanks sullenly. "To learn to fish!"
replied the master of sarcasm of the delicate Scottish variety.
Respectful by nature to their superiors, the honest working folk of
Speyside occasionally forget themselves comically in their passionate
ardour that a hooked salmon shall be brought to bank. Lord Elgin, now
in his Indian satrapy, far away from what Sir Noel Paton in his fine
elegy on the late Sir Alexander Gordon Cumming of Altyre called
The rushing thunder of the Spey,
one day hooked a big fish in the "run" below "Polmet". The fish headed
swiftly down stream, his lordship in eager pursuit, but afraid of
putting any strain on the line lest the salmon should "break" him. Down
round the bend below the pool and by the "Slabs" fish and fisherman
sped, till the latter was brought up by the sheer rock of
Craigellachie. Fortunately a fisherman ferried the Earl across the
river to the side on which he was able to follow the fish. On he ran,
keeping up with the fish, under the bridge, along the margin of
"Shanks's Pool," past the "Boat of Fiddoch" pool and the mouth of the
tributary; and he was still on the run along the edge of the croft
beyond when he was suddenly confronted by an aged man, who dropped his
turnip hoe and ran eagerly to the side of the young nobleman. Old
Guthrie could give advice from the experience of a couple of
generations as poacher, water-gillie, occasional water-bailiff, and
from as extensive and peculiar acquaintance with the river as Sam
Weller possessed of London public-houses. And this is what he
exclaimed: "Ma Lord, ma Lord, gin ye dinna check him, that fush will
tak' ye doun tae Speymouth--deil, but he'll tow ye oot tae sea! Hing
intil him, hing intil him!" His lordship exerted himself accordingly,
but did not secure the old fellow's approval. "Man! man!" Guthrie
yelled, "ye're nae pittin' a twa-ounce strain on him; he's makin' fun
o' ye!" The nobleman tried yet harder, yet could not please his
relentless critic. "God forgie me, but ye canna fush worth a damn! Come
back on the lan', an' gie him the butt wi' pith!" 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. Many a
man, far away now from "bonnie Arndilly" and the hoarse murmur of the
river's roll over its rugged bed, recalls in wistful recollection the
swift yet smooth flow of "the Dip;" the thundering rush of Spey against
the "Red Craig," in the deep, strong water at the foot of which the big
red fish leap like trout when the mellowness of the autumn is tinting
into glow of russet and crimson the trees which hang on the steep bank
above; the smooth restful glide into the long oily reach of the "Lady's
How," in which a fisherman may spend to advantage the livelong day and
then not leave it fished out; the turbulent half pool, half stream, of
the "Piles," which always holds large fish lying behind the great
stones or in the dead water under the daisy-sprinkled bank on which the
tall beeches cast their shadows; the "Bulwark Pool;" the "Three
Stones," where the grilse show their silver sides in the late May
evenings; "Gilmour's" and "Carnegie's," the latter now, alas! spoiled
by gravel; the quaintly named "Tam Mear's Crook" and the "Spout o'
Cobblepot;" and then the dark, sullen swirls of "Sourdon," the deepest
pool of Spey.
The earliest of the three Arndilly lairds of my time was the Colonel, a
handsome, generous man of the old school, who was as good over High
Leicestershire as he was over his own moors and on his own water, and
who, while still in the prime of life, died of cholera abroad. Good in
the saddle and with the salmon rod, the Colonel was perhaps best behind
a gun, with which he was not less deadly among the salmon of the Spey
than among the grouse of Benaigen. His relative, old Lord Saltoun, was
hard put to it once in the "Lady's How" with a thirty-pound salmon
which he had hooked foul, and which, in its full vigour, was taking all
manner of liberties with him, making spring after spring clean out of
the water. The beast was so rebellious and strong that the old lord
found it harder to contend with than with the Frenchmen who fought so
stoutly with him for the possession of Hougomont. The Colonel,
fowling-piece in hand, was watching the struggle, and seeing that Lord
Saltoun was getting the worst of it awaited his opportunity when the
big salmon's tail was in the air after a spring, and, firing in the
nick of time, cut the fish's spine just above the tail, hardly marking
it elsewhere. The Colonel occasionally fished the river with
cross-lines, which are still legal although their use is now considered
rather the "Whitechapel game." He resorted to the cross-lines, not in
greed for fish but for the sake of the shooting practice they afforded
him. When the hooked fish were struggling and in their struggles
showing their tails out of water, he several times shot two right and
left breaking the spine in each case close to the tail.
The Colonel was succeeded by his brother, who had been a planter in
Jamaica before coming to the estate on the death of his brother. Hardly
was he home when he contested the county unsuccessfully on the old
never-say-die Protectionist platform against the father of the present
Duke of Fife; on the first polling-day of which contest I acquired a
black eye and a bloody nose in the market square of a local village at
the hands of some gutter lads, with whose demand that I should take the
Tory rosette out of my bonnet I had declined to comply. 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.
My reminiscences of Spey and Speyside are drawing to an end, and I now
with natural diffidence approach a great theme. Every Speyside man will
recognise from this exordium that I am about to treat of "Geordie." It
is quite understood throughout lower Speyside that it is the moral
support which Geordie accords to Craigellachie Bridge, in the immediate
vicinity of which he lives, that chiefly maintains that structure; and
that if he were to withdraw that support, its towers and roadway would
incontinently collapse into the depths of the sullen pool spanned by
the graceful erection. The best of men are not universally popular, and
it must be said that there are those who cast on Geordie the aspersion
of being "some thrawn," for which the equivalent in south-country
language is perhaps "a trifle cross-grained." These, however, are
envious people, who are jealous of Geordie's habitual association with
lords and dukes, and who resent the trivial stiffness which is no doubt
apparent in his manner to ordinary people for the first few days after
the illustrious persons referred to have reluctantly permitted him to
withdraw from them the light of his countenance. For my own part I have
found Geordie, all things considered, to be wonderfully affable. That
his tone is patronising I do not deny; but then there is surely a joy
in being patronised by the factotum of a duke.
I have never been quite sure, nor have I ever dared to ask Geordie,
whether he considers the Duke to be his patron, or whether he regards
himself as the patron of that eminent nobleman. From the
"aucht-and-forty daugh" of Strathbogie to the Catholic Braes of
Glenlivat where fifty years ago the "sma' stills" reeked in every
moorland hollow, across to beautiful Kinrara and down Spey to the
fertile Braes of Enzie, his Grace is the benevolent despot of a
thriving tenantry who have good cause to regard him with esteem and
gratitude. The Duke is a masterful man, whom no factor need attempt to
lead by the nose; but on the margin of Spey, from the blush-red crags
of Cairntie down to the head of tide water, he owns his centurion in
Geordie, who taught him to throw his first line when already he was a
minister of the Crown, and who, as regards aught appertaining to salmon
fishing, saith unto his Grace, Do this and he doeth it.
Geordie is a loyal subject, and when a few years ago he had the
opportunity of seeing Her Majesty during her momentary halt at Elgin
station, he paid her the compliment of describing her as a "sonsie
wife." But the heart-loyalty of the honest fellow goes out in all its
tender yet imperious fulness towards the Castle family, to most of the
members of which, of both sexes, he has taught the science and practice
of killing salmon. Hint the faintest shadow of disparagement of any
member of that noble and worthy house, and you make a life enemy of
Geordie. On no other subject is he particularly touchy, save one--the
gameness and vigour of the salmon of Spey. Make light of the fighting
virtues of Spey fish--exalt above them the horn of the salmon of Tay,
Ness, or Tweed--and Geordie loses his temper on the instant and
overwhelms you with the strongest language. There is a tradition that
among Geordie's remote forbears was one of Cromwell's Ironsides who on
the march from Aberdeen to Inverness fell in love with a Speyside lass
of the period, and who, abandoning his Ironside appellation of
"Hew-Agag-in-Pieces," adopted the surname which Geordie now bears. This
strain of ancestry may account for Geordie's smooth yet peremptory
skill as a disciplinarian. It devolves upon him during the rod-fishing
season to assign to each person of the fishing contingent his or her
particular stretch of water, and to tell off to each as guide one of
his assistant attendants.
It is a great treat to find Geordie in a garrulous humour and to listen
to one of his salmon-fishing stories, told always in the broadest of
north-country Doric. His sense of humour is singularly keen,
notwithstanding that he is a Scot; and it is not in his nature to
minimise his own share in the honour and glory of the incident he may
relate. One of Geordie's stories is vividly in my recollection, and may
appropriately conclude my reminiscences of Speyside and its folk. There
was a stoup of "Benrinnes" on the mantelpiece and a free-drawing pipe
in Geordie's mouth. His subject was the one on which he can be most
eloquent--an incident of the salmon-fishing season, on which the worthy
man delivered himself as follows:--
"Twa or three seasons back I was attendin' Leddy Carline whan she was
fushin' that gran' pool at the brig o' Fochabers. She's a fine fusher,
Leddy Carline: faith, she may weel be, for I taucht her mysel'. She
hookit a saumon aboot the midst o' the pool, an' for a while it gied
gran' sport; loupin' and tumblin', an' dartin' up the watter an' doon
the watter at sic a speed as keepit her leddyship muvin' gey fast tae
keep abriesht o't. Weel, this kin' o' wark, an' a ticht line, began for
tae tak' the spunk oot o' the saumon, an' I was thinkin' it was a
quieston o' a few meenits whan I wad be in him wi' the gaff; but my
birkie, near han' spent though he was, had a canny bit dodge up the
sleeve o' him. He made a bit whamlin' run, an' deil tak' me gin he
didna jam himself intil a neuk atween twa rocks, an' there the dour
beggar bade an' sulkit. Weel, her leddyship keepit aye a steady drag on
him, an' she gied him the butt wi' power; but she cudna get the beast
tae budge--no, nae sae muckle as the breadth o' my thoomb-nail. Deil a
word said Leddy Carline tae me for a gey while, as she vrought an'
vrought tae gar the saumon quit his neuk. But she cam nae speed wi'
him; an' at last she says, says she, 'Geordie, I can make nothing of
him: what in the world is to be done?' 'Gie him a shairp upward yark,
my leddy,' says I; 'there canna be muckle strength o' resistance left
in him by this time!' Weel, she did as I tellt her--I will say this for
Leddy Carline, that she's aye biddable. But, rugg her hardest, the fush
stuck i' the neuk as gin he waur a bit o' the solid rock, an' her
leddyship was becomin' gey an' exhaustit. 'Take the rod yourself,
Geordie,' says she, 'and try what you can do; I freely own the fish is
too many for me.' Weel, I gruppit the rod, an' I gied a shairp, steady,
upward drag; an' up the brute cam, clean spent. He hadna been sulkin'
aifter aa'; he had been fairly wedged atween the twa rocks, for whan I
landit him, lo an' behold! he was bleedin' like a pig, an' there was a
muckle gash i' the side o' him, that the rock had torn whan I draggit
him by main force up an' oot. The taikle was stoot, ye'll obsairve, or
else he be tae hae broken me; but tak' my word for't, Geordie is no the
man for tae lippen tae feckless taikle.
"Weel, I hear maist things; an' I was tellt that same nicht hoo at the
denner-table Leddy Carline relatit the haill adventur', an' owned, fat
was true aneuch, that the fush had fairly bestit her. Weel, amo' the
veesitors at the Castle was the Dowager Leddy Breadanham; an' it seemed
that whan Leddy Carline was through wi' her narrateeve, the dowager be
tae gie a kin' o' a scornfu' sniff an' cock her neb i' the air; an' she
said, wha but she, that she didna hae muckle opingin o' Leddy Carline
as a saumon fisher, an' that she hersel' didna believe there was a fush
in the run o' Spey that she cudna get the maistery ower. That was a gey
big word, min' ye; it's langidge I wadna venture for tae make use o'
mysel', forbye a south-countra dowager.
"Weel, I didna say muckle; but, my faith, like the sailor's paurot, I
thoucht a deevil o' a lot. The honour o' Spey was in my hauns, an' it
behuvit me for tae hummle the pride o' her dowager leddyship. The
morn's mornin' cam, an' by that time I had decided on my plan o'
operautions. By guid luck I fand the dowager takin' her stroll afore
brakfast i' the floor-gairden. I ups till her, maks my boo, an' says I,
unco canny an' respectfu', 'My leddy, ye'll likely be for the watter
the day?' She said she was, so says I, 'Weel, my leddy, I'll be prood
for tae gae wi' ye mysel', an' I'll no fail tae reserve for ye as guid
water as there is in the run o' Spey!' She was quite agreeable, an' so
we sattlit it.
"The Duke himsel' was oot on the lawn whan I was despatchin' the ither
fushin' folk, ilk ane wi' his or her fisherman kerryin' the rod.
'Geordie,' said his Grace, 'with whom will you be going yourself?' 'Wi'
the Dowager Leddy Breadanham, yer Grace!' says I. 'And where do you
think of taking her ladyship, Geordie?' speers he. 'N'odd, yer Grace,'
says I, 'I am sattlin in my min' for tae tak' the leddy tae the "Brig
o' Fochabers" pool;' an' wi' that I gied a kin' o' a respectfu'
half-wink. The Duke was no' the kin' o' man for tae wink back, for
though he's aye grawcious, he's aye dignifeed; but there was a bit
flichter o' humour roun' his mou' whan he said, says he, 'I think that
will do very well, Geordie!'
"Praesently me an' her leddyship startit for the 'Brig o' Fochabers'
pool. She cud be vera affauble whan she likit, I'll say that muckle for
the dowager; an' me an' her newsed quite couthie-like as we traivellt.
I saftened tae her some, I frankly own; but than my hert hardent again
whan I thoucht o' the duty I owed tae Spey an' tae Leddy Carline. Of
coorse there was a chance that my scheme wad miscairry; but there's no
a man on Spey frae Tulchan tae the Tug Net that kens the natur' o'
saumon better nor mysel'. They're like sheep--fat ane daes, the tithers
will dae; an' gin the dowager hookit a fush, I hadna muckle doobt fat
that fush wad dae. The dowager didna keep me vera lang in suspense. I
had only chyngt her fly ance, an' she had maist fushed doon the pool a
secont time, whan in the ripple o' watter at the head o' the draw abune
the rapid a fush took her 'Riach' wi' a greedy sook, an' the line was
rinnin' oot as gin there had been a racehorse at the far end o't, the
saumon careerin' up the pool like a flash in the clear watter. The
dowager was as fu' o' life as was the fush. Odd, but she kent brawly
hoo tae deal wi' her saumon--that I will say for her! There was nae
need for me tae bide closs by the side o' a leddy that had boastit
there was na a fush in Spey she cudna maister, sae I clamb up the bank,
sat doun on ma doup on a bit hillock, an' took the leeberty o' lichtin'
ma pipe. Losh! but that dowager spanged up an' doun the waterside among
the stanes aifter that game an' lively fush; an' troth, but she was as
souple wi' her airms as wi' her legs; for, rinnin' an' loupin' an'
spangin' as she was, she aye managed for tae keep her line ticht. It
was a dooms het day, an' there wasna a ruffle o' breeze; sae nae doobt
the fush was takin' as muckle oot o' her as she was takin' oot o' the
fush. In aboot ten meenits there happent juist fat I had expectit. The
fush made a sidelins shoot, an' dairted intil the vera crevice occupeed
by Leddy Carline's fush the day afore. 'Noo for the fun!' thinks I, as
I sat still an' smokit calmly. She was certently a perseverin' wummun,
that dowager--there was nae device she didna try wi' that saumon tae
force him oot o' the cleft. Aifter aboot ten meenits mair o' this wark,
she shot at me ower her shouther the obsairve, 'Isn't it an obstinate
wretch?' 'Aye,' says I pawkily, 'he's gey dour; but he's only a Spey
fush, an' of coorse ye'll maister him afore ye've dune wi' him!' I'm
thinkin' she unnerstude the insinivation, for she uttert deil anither
word, but yokit tee again fell spitefu' tae rug an' yark at the sulkin'
fush. At last, tae mak a lang story short, she was fairly dune.
'Geordie,' says she waikly, 'the beast has quite worn me out! I'm fit
to melt--there is no strength left in me; here, come and take the rod!'
Weel, I deleeberately raise, poocht ma pipe, an' gaed doun aside her.
'My leddy,' says I, quite solemn, an' luikin' her straucht i' the
face--haudin' her wi' my ee, like--'I hae been tellt fat yer leddyship
said yestreen, that there wasna a saumon in Spey ye cudna maister. Noo,
I speer this at yer leddyship--respectfu' but direck; div ye admit
yersel clean bestit--fairly lickit wi' that fush, Spey fush though it
be? Answer me that, my leddy!' 'I do own myself beaten,' says she, 'and
I retract my words.' 'Say nae mair, yer leddyship!' says I--for I'm no
a cruel man--'say nae mair, but maybe ye'll hae the justice for tae say
a word tae the same effeck in the Castle whaur ye spak yestreen?' 'I
promise you I will,' said the dowager--'here, take the rod!' Weel, it
was no sae muckle a fush as was Leddy Carline's. I had it oot in a few
meenits, an' by that time the dowager was sae far revived that she was
able to bring it in aboot tae the gaff; an' sae, in the hinner end, she
in a sense maistert the fush aifter aa'. But I'm thinkin' she will be
gey cautious in the futur' aboot belittlin' the smeddum o' Spey saumon!"