The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-08-06
A BLACK POOL MON
STORY OF A NIGHTS LUCKY FISHING IN SCOTLAND

| no answer came And then / took 10
the woods and little boys with the be-
| quilting sweetgale in them, the messed
rock and the rotten timber of years
| littering 1t among the bracken, and
made first for the cottage of Bob Mac
gregor, a tawny bearded heather, who
did not go to the kirk on the Sabbath,
but spent the day instead incoming
about in his braces with short pipe
in his mouth, and on weekdays did a
mysterious nothing in particular in
| support of his lean wife and her six
small children. Macgregor's cottage
lay rather higher up the glen than
MacTavish's. 1t was not creditable
homestead. The younger Macgregors
were a bare-legged, iIl-kempt crew,
mixed up Indoors with company of
| sly slittle swapping rough-haired ter
riers, hens and their broods and half
concealed gins for vermin. the vermin
| being without a doubt rabbits for the
domestic pot / had ere this supected
| the nefarious nature Of MacTavish' s
one acknowledged friend in the village,
| but he was so much a wild man of the
woods and glenS in appearance that
one could not exactly blame him for
| his habits. For once, however, Rob
Macgregor was not tempted to exert
! himself even in misdoing. / tapped
! twice ere the door opened to show his
| tawny head and the troubled faces of
| his offspring behind him. NO" he
said, when 1 told him he was wanted.
Il cannot come. I'm no that weel. Did
| ye say he's at the Black Pool, sir?'''
| Are you coming or arn't your" | re-
| torted. Deed and he is not" put in
the pinched, shrill voice of his wife.
AT sic an hour! He has his life TO
think of, sir. What's MacTayish
thinking of himself to be doing sic a
rash thing? Yell get into your bed,
Macgregor." 'Ay, 1 WILL" said Macgre-
gor, And the Lord keep his fit from
slipping and sliding. brave man though
/ he is. Ay, there's none kens the glen
better than MacTavish. butt left
| him, wagging his discreet head and
made for our own byre, only to have
as bad luck with the gait as with Rob-
ert Macgregor. My lighted matches
aroused the ire of retriever bitch with
a recent pup, the happy survivor of a
| family of four, the drowned three of
which she had not done mourning. Not
! for much would / have sought the help
of poor Mrs. MacTavish herself In that
possible middle period of uncertainty
whether she was to begin the new day
WlIe as DSIOre OF a WldOW. After all,
| it did not seem to matter. MacTavish
! had never yet landed a salmon in the
Black Pool Sober, he had declared
the feat impossible: the FISH would go
round and round and sink TO gain fresh
strength TO go round and round again,
and when at it's wits end ii would just
bolt for the neither fall. and that would
be all. Though MacTavish had never
yet lost a hooked fish, he was destined
to go through the experience. The gaff
were only an aggravation of his risks,
for how could he get down to the
smooth sheer rocks of the basin to do
the browning work without tumbling
in, which it were disagreeable to con-
template? On the whole, it were far
best, providential indeed, that neither
Macgregor nor the gait were to be at
| his service.