CLEAR WATERS 



wind. It was entitled ' Trout-fishing,' and while the 

 nurse gossiped with the gardener's wife my childish 

 gaze was always riveted upon it, though the little 

 room was hung with many other startling works of art. 

 It kindled within me a strange and pleasurable feeling 

 that I can still lucidly recall, though I could not define 

 or analyse it to save my Hfe. It was quite obviously 

 the first stir of the microbe — caught perhaps from 

 some playmate who had fishing ancestors ! With the 

 nursery period the few occasions for gazing on this 

 masterpiece passed away as did the very word trout 

 from my ken, and indeed my school holidays were 

 generally spent in the Isle of Wight, the most trout-less 

 bit of England. 



And in the meantime the microbe lay dormant. 

 The Kennet below our grounds — though I realised 

 nothing of this till a later day, was netted by a miller 

 at the bottom of the town, who, under a charter of, 

 I believe, Richard ii., possessed and still possesses 

 the curious archaic privilege of dragging his net once 

 a year for a long distance, irrespective of any riparian 

 owners' rights. But of this I knew nothing then. 

 A few years later I knew all about it and had more 

 than one wordy passage with the miller's man who, 

 from the withy bed which fronted our meadow, had 

 the impudence to dispute my right to throw a fly 

 from our own ground. It was before the days of dry- 

 fly fishing, here at any rate, and I really think that this 

 upper bit of the Kennet, though quite a sizeable 

 stream, had never before had a fly of any sort cast 

 upon it. There were no local fishermen. It had 

 become a sort of stodgy tradition that the river was 



4 



