CLEAR WATERS 



Marlborough, and then the river, as so frequently 

 happens in the higher waters of chalk streams, begins 

 to squander itself in shallow, gravelly trickles among 

 cresses and subaqueous vegetation, though for some 

 distance farther there are occasional small hatch-holes 

 where monsters lurk ready and anxious, so I have been 

 told by a friend who has tried it, to take a natural 

 minnow directly it touches the water. But there are 

 only two miles, at the most, of fly water above the 

 town, and in it the surface-feeding fish run smaller 

 and are less numerous than in the larger waters and 

 greater preserves below. The upper half of this 

 stretch, however, the very topmost fishable bit of the 

 river in short, had afforded me many a pleasant hour 

 when a lad in the bad, old, wet-fly days, and a good 

 many brace of three-quarter-pounders picked up in 

 odd hours. On the occasion in question I had not trod 

 these particular banks with a rod for nearly thirty 

 years. A generation of fly-fishers and dry ones, of course, 

 had grown up even on this little stretch of water since 

 then. Every one who has been to Marlborough knows 

 it well, that reach along the foot of the old churchyard 

 at Preshute, past the foot of Preshute house garden, 

 under the arched bridge, and for a couple of meadows 

 beyond towards Manton. It was a lovely June after- 

 noon, and I had gone down about tea-time, and in 

 those half-pleasant, half-painful memories that the 

 waters of youth so vividly stimulate had spent a quiet 

 hour or two on the once familiar stretches, but had 

 only basketed one just sizeable fish, as there was practi- 

 cally no rise on. There was still, however, the pet 

 spot of my wet-fly youth remaining, and that was 



