IN A WELSH VALLEY 187 



wire, a river in half flood and rising, and a bull 

 waiting for you to come out of it, and you have your 

 day's excitement fully provided. 



The sort of weather we all had can be gauged by 

 the fact that from time to time one of us would 

 rise silently from his chair and step from the sitting- 

 room into the hall. Then would come the sound 

 of hammering — the barometer. Our landlord, easy- 

 going man that he is, even he was moved to protest. 

 He said that the instrument could not be expected 

 to do its honest duty when beaten like that. Where- 

 upon Caradoc told him the story of the irate gentle- 

 man who threw his expensive but unresponsive 

 barometer into the garden with the remark, " Go 

 and see for yourself, you beast ! " Certainly our 

 barometer did very strange things. It climbed to 

 a giddy height, leaped suddenly down to " much 

 rain," and then climbed again just as quickly. 

 Perhaps there ought to be a mark for comets on 

 barometers. 



While I was away a dry-fly friend wrote to ask 

 why I was wasting time over *' Welsh minnows," 

 a question begotten of a recent victory over a five- 

 pounder in the Kennet. He would have had his 

 answer had he felt the thrill that I felt on the one 

 satisfactory day when waist-deep in the chub pool 

 I saw that I had hooked, not after all a chub, as I 

 feared, but a veritable trout of great size. He 



