CLEAR WATERS 



possession, for the horrible suspicion that the faithful 

 little dog kept life in her for so many weeks by devour- 

 ing her master's flesh is inseparable from the tragedy. 

 Seriously, though, I have once or twice thought my 

 heart's desire was actually within my grasp. On one 

 occasion I had seven or eight fish before lunch, the 

 most I have ever killed in a day in this mysterious 

 lake. And then I flogged it all the afternoon without 

 another touch ! The last time I was up there I hooked 

 at the very first cast and basketed the handsomest fish 

 I have had out of the lake. Eternal hope sprang 

 once more in my breast, especially as two or three 

 years had passed since the last experiment. And then 

 came a long blank, when I handed my rod to a com- 

 panion, climbed up to the top of Helvellyn by Striding 

 Edge, was rewarded by a glorious view, and so down 

 by Swhirrel Edge on the other side of the lake. My 

 friend had got one more in the hour I was absent. 

 After that we tried alternately, but in vain, though 

 every condition was propitious ; and the tarn along 

 every foot of its shore does lend itself so perfectly 

 to effective and comfortable treatment with a fly-rod. 

 But after all, the two hours' walk from Ullswater 

 along the high ridge leading to Helvellyn, with that 

 glorious ever-present prospect of Grisedale below you, 

 if only to lunch at Red tarn, beneath the mighty 

 precipice of Helvellyn, would be accounted of itself 

 a day well spent by many to whom trouting is a vain 

 thing. And so it is, and if despairing of trout, and 

 seizing the propitious moment when the peak is free 

 of cloud, you can add its modest conquest and its 

 noble outlook to your little day, the fish may be 

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