VIII 



Trout - Tickling 467 



or twice to make sure of my position, contract them 

 with one strong squeeze. A moment's paralysis, 

 and out with your beauty, high up into the air, to 

 flounce and flutter in the heather on the bank. Ah! 

 it is pleasant, this playing with the unseen ; and soft 

 and dainty is the speckled skin to the judicious 

 tickler, who lets the trout touch him rather more 

 than he touches the trout. Should you doubt this 

 being an interesting form of sport, get an adept to 

 do it before you ; and, seating yourself on a neigh- 

 bouring stone, watch his expressive countenance 

 cocked up, blinking sunwards, and mark every gleam 

 and gloom, joy, despair, hope, doubt, and triumph, 

 as they chase each other across it, as they do over 

 that of a blind musician developing deep sympathies 

 out of the (to him) invisible organ tamed into 

 melody by his dainty fingers ; and you will never 

 doubt more, but roll up your sleeves incontinently, 

 and ' wade in.' There are many other forms of 

 tickling suited to heavier waters and heavier trout, 

 forms only too deadly among the long waving 

 weed -masses of a Hampshire chalk -stream, or the 

 hollowed -out banks of a Wiltshire grayling- brook. 

 But even I, given to poaching as I have been from 

 my youth up, would hesitate to profane such 

 sanctuaries. 



It is an art which all travellers should understand, 

 as it might serve them in good stead at a pinch ; 

 and, poaching though it be, given a small stream 

 swarming with small fish, the proper weather, the 



