CLEAR WATERS 



and a quarter pounds, and the bait cheese ! We were 

 abjured and implored to be back for breakfast and an 

 early start for the Engadine via Chur, and threatened 

 in case of failure to be abandoned to our fate as helpless 

 British boys, in a strange land, innocent of any speech 

 but our own. For I do not think I am doing my 

 friend the dean an injustice in saying that he was then 

 scarcely more effective than I in this particular, though 

 he was a scholar of his coUege. 



We carried our scheme out only too thoroughly. 

 What possessed us I cannot think. Whether the big 

 fish demonstrated in tantahsing fashion — for we caught 

 none — neither of us at this day can recall, or whether 

 we jointly suffered from mental aberration as to the 

 flight of time. But it is quite certain that the first 

 thing which awoke us to our situation was the rumble 

 of a train along the lake shore just behind us and frantic 

 shouts and waving of handkerchiefs from a carriage 

 window. Then we knew we were lost. We had no 

 money to speak of in our pockets, nor did I know 

 precisely whither our party were bound. Possibly 

 my companion knew just so much. A wild but, as 

 it proved, saving instinct seized both of us. Without 

 a moment's hesitation, I carrying the rod with the 

 bait still on the hook, we started off in pursuit of the 

 train, the demonstrations from the window, though 

 growing more distant, cheering us on. It was those 

 alone indeed that buoyed us on. We thought it 

 suggested some hope, absurd though it seemed to run 

 after a railway train, howsoever slow its pace. As a 

 matter of fact we proved by a mere accident to be 

 little over half a mile from the next station. But 



36 



