Trouting. 47 



thing all day but blue duns and fluttering willow flies. And you do not 

 indulge in such a ramble for the sake of showing your fish against all 

 comers, but for solitude and self-communion among scenes that teU no lies 

 and brook none." 



It is not necessary to prolong the description of the delights of worm 

 fishing after this. In the little Cornish brooks, where I first began to trout 

 fish as a lad, this was much the sort of sport we enjoyed out away upon 

 the wide moors dotted with moorstone and heather. How well I remember 

 them, and how I love their memory ! We never got a fish over half a 

 pound, and I only remember two or three of that size. Three to the pound 

 was a very good fish, and the average would run of about five to the 

 pound ; and of these we would catch from two to five or six dozen in a day, 

 and I have caught as many as ten dozen in a day. That dear old CoUege 

 brook behind Penrhyn, where every half-holiday was spent, and some 

 which we stole from good Master Kemp, or as it was termed " minched," 

 when the day " was quite too irresistible altogether, don't you know ?" And 

 though that is forty years ago, how well do I remember stUl every stretch 

 and turn in it, from the little artificial fall at the end of the woods, to out 

 away past Mabe Church, and towards Constantine moors. Many a day of 

 calm delight have I had in bonny Hampshire beside the finest trout waters 

 perhaps in England, take them as a whole. Aye, many and many and many 

 a score. And many a doughty Derbyshire day have I reckoned; while 

 Berkshire and Bucks, Devonshire, Oxford, Kent and Surrey, Shropshire, 

 Northumberland, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland have contributed their 

 share to my trouting piscatory delights ; but somehow I seem only to love 

 the yellow gorse, the grey moorstone, and the blooming heather the better. 



Memoria est per quam mens repetit ilia quse fuerunt; 



and the things that have been onli/ come back to us in memory, alas ! 



" Worthy Master Crayon, wend you along with me to where the crystal 

 Anton springs new born from its chalk bed, and runs through many a 

 charming mead, past town and village, sparkling and dimpling in sunlight 

 and shadow, gurgling under many a rustic bridge, where the long weed 

 sways to and fro over the golden gravel, and many a two and even three 



