CLEAR WATERS 



see a bustard, he would understand why there was 

 nothing more to be said. 



I shall never forget, however, that June midnight 

 of my sole endeavour, moonless as it was, for the glory 

 of its starlight effects upon the glassy lake. We were 

 only on our way by boat to the proposed fishing- 

 ground, a sandy bay some four miles off towards 

 Howtown, when our hopes were dashed. But as 

 we drifted despondently under my favourite crags 

 of the daytime, I thought I would try under them, 

 and as a matter of fact I did there get a brace of fish. 

 But the reflection of those rich-coloured cliffs shed 

 upon the water by the light of the stars alone was so 

 brilliant, so iridescent, so realistic that the surface 

 of the water which lay against them ceased, as such, 

 to exist. As I cast my flies at the base of the crags, 

 there was not the faintest indication where the glow- 

 ing reality ended and its reflected vision began. I 

 have never seen the like, doubtless because I have 

 seldom fished on starlight nights in such romantic 

 spots. 



Some mention, too, must be made of the * great 

 grey trout ' of Ullswater. There is some tradition of 

 them from old monkish times, but no very big trout, 

 so far as I know, are ever caught nowadays. Neither 

 my expert local friends nor my landlord have ever seen 

 one, and it is needless to say more. But oddly enough, 

 as a mere visitor, I have had that privilege, and at very 

 close quarters too, which may be accounted perhaps 

 as a set off against my otherwise malignant star. And 

 the odd thing was that I was standing at the time in 

 a public and frequented place — in short, just where the 

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