CLEAR WATERS 



iron constitution overtaxed, no doubt, by unceasing 

 physical activities. As regards this concentrated 

 record between two covers of a whole life's sport, 

 the hunting being continuous, and including two years 

 of acting M.F.H., naturally took up most space, 

 namely, from one to three lines of small writing per 

 day, giving the covers drawn or points of a run, and 

 the horse ridden. For shooting, there is the beat 

 shot, the companions, if any, the setters out, and the 

 bag. For fishing, the stretch of water, the companion, 

 if any, and precisely what each caught. That last is 

 a curious note under the circumstances above related, 

 and runs right through all the years, for the game bags, 

 which would have usually told another story, are rarely 

 thus apportioned.^ 



Often in the later years, when I was over in Ireland, 

 the book, always kept locked up, used to be produced 

 after dinner, and its author used to deHght in reading 

 out the rather faded notes of our youthful days 

 together on the Lammermuirs, or in Ireland. There 

 were no fish lies here ! Just the precise number we 

 each basketed, the water fished, the weather, and 

 perhaps the flies used. But these bald entries stirred 

 the chords of memory fast enough, and with pipes 

 and hot punch before the blazing peat fire of the 

 snug little smoking-room, we used to kill our fish all 

 over again, and meet all our old friends and acquaint- 

 ances of those days once more. And then came the 



1 The text as above might suggest an idle, useless life. As a matter of 

 fact, a more unostentatiously useful existence in all matters connected with 

 agriculture and county business would be difficult to imagine — above all, in 

 Ireland. This indeed kept within limits the sporting days to be recorded. 



360 



