218 TROUT FISHING 



and naturally my mind became unhinged. I rushed 

 up and down the seven streams and the seventy 

 carriers, and the seven hundred thousand three- 

 pound trout rushed too; we all rushed. My rod 

 went up and down like a flail, my fly fled hither and 

 thither like a snipe, the sun came out, the sky took 

 on a blue face — it was a mad and merry time. I 

 arrived at the point of tea with a brace weighing 

 just under four pounds, and I expect I ought to have 

 had five brace weighing forty. 



" And then after test there was the five-pounder 

 to be caught at the point of the island, and the 

 four-pounder under the hedge, and much more 

 to be crowded into a delirious evening. To reach 

 the five-pounder needed a twenty-two-yard cast, 

 with about five yards of slack over and above to 

 counteract the weed bed and the eddy. But the 

 strength of the insane was upon me, and after a 

 strenuous hour I succeeded in losing him. And 

 I lost a three-and-a-half-pounder just below him, 

 and a three-pounder just below him, and the four- 

 pounder under the hedge, and had other brave doings 

 worthy of the opportunity and of me. The end 

 of it all was one more fish below the size limit, which 

 had swallowed the fly and made himself bleed. 

 What a day it would have been for a calm, capable 

 person who had not known trouble. 



" I could tell of another day on a water scarcely 



