442 Notes on Sport and Travel vi 



like a water-snake ; with dim dull rings and spots 

 about him, each with a reddish centre mark like a 

 bruised bayonet-wound — for all the trout in Test ; 

 and why? — not only for the fish himself, and the 

 quantity of him, but also for the sake of his vagabond 

 cousin who lives with him — he who rises like a 

 shark, and fights like — the Devil ; who spends more 

 of his time, after being hooked, in the air than in the 

 water, and whose pluck never leaves him for a 

 moment ; but who, in spite of whacks on the head, 

 lives and kicks in the creel, till he has to be re-ex- 

 tracted and his head rehashed on a stone. Oh, ever 

 plucky sea-trout of the whalebone back ! and, besides, 

 the chance of — but hush, it is close time, and we had 

 better hold our tongues — however, if we do get her, 

 our knickerbockers will conceal her. And moreover 

 and above, setting the fish entirely on one side, I 

 look down upon you for the sake of the river itself. 



True it is that our river is dark and swarthy, 

 with its very foam of a rich, racy, gipsy tinge, likened 

 unto liquefied cairngorums by romantic young ladies, 

 and unto bottled porter by their matter-of-fact brothers. 

 But, mark you ! it is a river — no stream ; bright, in 

 spite of its brownness ; strong, wayward, flashing and 

 bounding and hustling along, moving big stones 

 when in spate as if they were dropped rowan berries, 

 and rounding and rattling the little ones till each bit 

 of granite and pudding-stone is smoothed and 

 polished enough to be admitted into her Grace's 

 boudoir 2ls di presse-papier. 



