CLEAR WATERS 



and did, to be sure, kill about six pounds. After that, 

 better and better though the days apparently became 

 and the finer the water, none of us could do anything. 

 * Grand weather for grayling,' we echoed every morn- 

 ing at breakfast. * Fine grayling weather, sir,' said 

 the coachman and the gardener. * They '11 be a-goin' 

 to-day, sure to be,' said the keeper (who was never 

 known to make superfluous or optimistic remarks). 

 The road-mender, the old-age pensioner who brooded 

 much of the day (and small blame to him, for it is a 

 charming spot upon Lugg bridge) with less authority, 

 said the same thing. Thus, too, echoed the sporting 

 publican from Kingsland, who, of course, pulls his trap 

 up on it if any one is fishing. ' Fine grayling weather,' 

 said one and all. Of course they did ; the thing was 

 as obvious as the bright serenity of the weather itself, 

 as obvious as Kingsland church tower, with the far- 

 away line of the Black Mountains behind it. But the 

 grayling themselves didn't think so, though in our 

 meagre baskets we generally had two or three very 

 handsome trout, and naturally enough after such a 

 continued orgy of high feeding, even still in good 

 condition. 



I remember, too, how a year or so previously two 

 of those trifling but curious incidents that occur to 

 most of us perhaps once in a lifetime, happened 

 simultaneously on this water. A swallow taking one's 

 fly is too usual a thing to be worthy of mention, but 

 on this particular occasion, just as my line had straight- 

 ened out before falling on the water, one dashed into 

 it, and by a movement so instantaneous as to be 

 imperceptible, was fluttering hopelessly entangled in 

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