THE DEVONSHIRE AVON 



I told him I was at Brent, and it was regarded as a 

 bracing place. * Brent ! ' he almost shouted, when I 

 told him, ' Brent ! Why, as you aren't a native, 

 I 'm only surprised you are as well as you are. Now 

 I will tell you something. It 's very strange that you 

 should have come to me. For I went down with 

 my wife last year for a month's holiday to that very 

 place, and I give you my word, upon the third day I 

 could hardly walk upstairs, and we left upon the fourth.' 

 I felt much better when I came out, of course, and as 

 the fishing was about over the protracted lassitude 

 lost most of its significance, and dropped even out of 

 memory shooting partridges in Suffolk that September, 

 though it was the hottest within living memory. 



History repeats itself. My mild alarms at this 

 time recalled a rather similar experience to my father's 

 memory. When a young fellow of his college he 

 conceived a fancy for seeing Cornwall, but after three 

 days, at Penzance I think, he lost the use of both his 

 legs ! Frightened out of his life he got up to London 

 somehow, and very naturally in the character, as he 

 supposed, of a threatened paralytic presented himself 

 immediately at some great physician's door. The 

 omniscient one was entirely reassuring, but told him 

 that the curious effect was not uncommon among 

 East Anglians and others who adventured in summer 

 time in what is now called by railway companies the 

 Cornish Riviera. My father died at eighty ! 



I have since fished the Avon in early spring when all 

 England is, I think, pretty safe from debilitating in- 

 fluences. But I would not give one day of May or 

 June, when the water is low, for three in spring when 



221 



