CLEAR WATERS 



found myself chasing a leviathan down the banks at 

 full speed. Mercifully the rush was shorty for just 

 below in a big pool matters came to a stop. I have 

 no clear idea how the fish and I kept on terms as the 

 former bored about the pool, but I had a pretty fair 

 notion of what gut would stand and had enough line 

 for immediate purposes. 



At that ever-blessed moment, however, I heard an 

 exclamation, and the keeper, as it proved to be, ap- 

 peared beside me. The fish had not jumped, but I 

 did not need him to tell me it was a salmon, though 

 I needed him desperately to help me struggle with it. 

 If he had approached in just wrath at seeing an urchin 

 in round jackets fishing his best salmon water at the 

 very moment of its perfection, he bridled his choler 

 and entered into the spirit of the fray, shouting in- 

 structions in Welsh-English as the fish bored about 

 the pool. Just below us was a single large alder-tree 

 projecting from the bank. If the fish took another 

 dart down stream, we, or at least I, was absolutely 

 done, for the water beneath the tree was unwadeable. 

 This is just however what the salmon proceeded very 

 shortly to do, whereupon the Welshman snatched the 

 rod out of my hand, and slid into the river up to his 

 waist. Holding the little rod in his left hand, and 

 grasping the brush round the alder trunk with his right 

 he swung himself round somehow and scrambled out on 

 to the bank beyond and after the fish again, who came 

 to a halt in another pool just below. Here he returned 

 me the rod, and as there were no more rushes the 

 battle eventually ended in our favour, the keeper 

 tailing the fish on a bit of gravel beach. It was a 



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