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CHAPTER XXII. 



A LUCKY EASTEB HOLIDAY. 



Finding ourselves in the North of England at this 

 season, we arranged with a brother angler to spend the 

 holiday-time together in a salmon-fishing expedition on 

 one of the Solway rivers ; so the kits were packed ready 

 for the couple of hours^ railway-journey on the morrow, 

 and tackle generally overhauled. 



The prospect was certainly not encouraging, as four 

 inches of snow lay in the streets and the hills around 

 were clothed in white. However, we determined to 

 carry out our plans, hoping that, as the district to be 

 visited was upon the opposite side of the country, 

 matters meteorological might there be more favourable. 



It is often no easy matter to ascertain at short notice 

 the condition of a river some miles distant ; but should 

 the angler be conversant with the geography of the 

 course and watershed of a river, he may frequently gain 

 some information from the weather reports of the 

 training-grounds published in the daily sporting papers, 

 and upon this occasion we were cheered up a bit while 

 reading in ' The Sportsman ' that the training-grounds 



