CLEAR WATERS 



education of his hopeful in the gentle art. He takes 

 him to far counties, north or west, and superintends his 

 elementary endeavours. Sometimes I have fancied, on 

 encountering such parties, that the hopeful is rather 

 bored. But never mind so long as he is not put off : 

 the experience will be of infinite comfort and use to 

 him in after life. The parents of former days, though 

 urgent in the matter of ponies, for riding was then a 

 virtual necessity, never dreamed of this other business ; 

 we had to look after the superfluities ourselves. Per- 

 haps the rector, himself an all-round sportsman, 

 suggested a probationary period before I communi- 

 cated to my people the uncanny demand for a fly-rod. 

 We had only three posts a week too, and were eleven 

 miles from anywhere. Nor could he guess that a 

 shrimp of a lad from the dry counties, an * up-country- 

 man' term of contempt among the local rustics, was 

 likely to fall a hopeless victim to the solitary fascinations 

 of an Exmoor stream. 



So for the nonce an expedient was devised in 

 the upper and nether portions of two broken rods 

 spliced together with string. This was my first 

 weapon, and it was about as handy as a shaven bean- 

 stick, while a reel was regarded for the present as a 

 superfluity. My pocket-money was equal to com- 

 pleting the outfit, while old Pulman of Totnes, a name 

 long forgotten, tackle purveyor to the household, 

 supplied me with two casts (collars they called, and 

 still call, them down there) and a dozen flies of the 

 before-mentioned patterns for their equivalent in 

 postage stamps. Our casts were coarser, and our flies, 

 I think, larger, than those used nowadays in that, or 



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