CLEAR WATERS 



of the end. A good many of them, forgotten in their 

 premature decline by old comrades and relatives alike, 

 lie in country churchyards among the mountains of 

 Wales, the victims of too much leisure, otherwise too 

 much conviviaHty, and indirectly, alas, of a love for 

 the rod. 



Three veterans, by no means colonels, however, 

 used to meet annually at Tal-y-llyn. It was an un- 

 alterable fixture, a law of the Medes and Persians. 

 One came from Yorkshire, the other from South Wales, 

 and a third from London. Their respective wives, 

 I have some reason to believe, had never seen each 

 other. Not belonging precisely to the same grade of 

 society, they would, doubtless, have refused to meet ! 

 But for this the three ancients, I am sure, cared less 

 than nothing. They were great cronies. The best 

 boats — and the boats as well as the oars were anything 

 but a level lot at Tal-y-llyn — were reserved for them 

 as a matter of prescriptive right. Even the colonel, and 

 there was very much of a colonel, and sometimes two, 

 at the Tyn-y-cornel in those days (both have gone 

 under), took a back seat in the choice of boats for these 

 three weeks. The trio were also men of method. 

 Whitmonday always fell some time in their holiday, and 

 as punctually upon that morning they all drove to 

 Machynlleth in Mr. Jones's cart, and took the railway 

 to Aberdovey, where they fished in the sea that after- 

 noon and the next morning, returning at night to 

 renew their labours on Tal-y-llyn. 



Every one of middle age familiar with the Wye in 

 its higher reaches, knows the pathetic story of the 

 three fishers, not Kingsley's, * who went out into the 



