CLEAR WATERS 



sure, heaps of trout, and those, moreover, in no 

 unpleasant exile. I had caught them, too, amid sur- 

 roundings that for beauty as such could not be 

 surpassed, I believe, upon the face of the earth. They 

 had come out of pellucid rocky streams, amid mountain 

 forests of rich foliage and exquisite splendour, thickly 

 carpeted with the dazzling bloom of rhododendrons and 

 kalmia. I had almost come to fancy myself cured of all 

 regrets for the streams and scenes of youth ; and I had 

 not thrown a fly on a British stream since I had reeled 

 up my line on the Whiteadder for the last time one 

 April day just a decade ago. On the occasion in ques- 

 tion I had run up very soon after my return home to 

 Newcastle to spend a couple of days with the most 

 intimate friend of my childhood and youth. We had, 

 in fact, been almost reared together, and then after- 

 wards as school friends on those rare occasions when 

 cricket or football was in abeyance and a whole day 

 was available, had been wont to make adventurous 

 pilgrimages in pursuit of trout or even meaner prey. 

 So it seemed only fitting and natural when I found 

 that one of my two days in the north was set aside for 

 a fishing excursion and that old days — for they seemed 

 very much so at two-and-thirty — were to be thus 

 commemorated. It was a felicitous coincidence, 

 too, that that very last day with the trout in the 

 old country, above alluded to, had been enjoyed 

 together. 



So off we went by an evening train from Newcastle. 

 For myself I knew nothing whatever of Northumber- 

 land at that period, while my companion from the 

 nature of his duties already knew every inch of it. 

 328 



