THE WELSH DEE 



course the first day, and moreover killed, to my sur- 

 prise, quite a fair basket. Then of a sudden came the 

 freshet that everybody said the river so badly needed, 

 and after its abatement balmy zephyrs blew from the 

 south-west, the sun gleamed out, and the joyous 

 promise of spring was in the air. Two or three fisher- 

 men arrived, and everybody, even I who should have 

 known better, joined the chorus of * what perfect 

 weather and what perfect water.' And then we all 

 cast our flies through these perfect days on the perfect 

 water, and regularly returned at even with about a 

 quarter of an average basket, to spend the time from 

 dinner till bed trying to solve this fiendish mystery. 

 At least they did, being strangers. For myself, I 

 began to remember the mysterious ways of the sacred 

 stream. 



It was in the prime of one of these exasperating 

 days, and I was pressing along a fearfully rugged 

 bottom under a thickly wooded shore, merely because 

 I had always done so in years past in order to fish the 

 top of a favourite pool. Indeed I had already made 

 a cast or two upon it, not a little hampered, as always, 

 by over - spreading boughs. On looking across to 

 the other shore it suddenly occurred to me what a 

 fool I was. For over yonder were nice, open, flat 

 ledges of dry, or barely covered rock along the bank, 

 with not a tree near. Surely, thought I, the river 

 must be unfordable in the shallows just above, though 

 it didn't look it, and it didn't prove so, and I reached 

 the other shore with ease. I then marvelled why it 

 was I had always laboured that pool from the other 

 bank. The ledges on this one sloped very gradually, 



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