160 By Stream and Sea. 



all the fish in the river ; if there is a possibility of upsetting 

 the bait-can, or treading upon the coils of his or my line, or 

 snapping the top joint in a tree or bush, he is the man to 

 take the utmost advantage of the situation. But he fishes 

 courageously right through the winter, never flinching from 

 rain, snow, wind, or frost so long as there is a chance of 

 sport; he is, in a word, one of those peculiarly-endowed 

 natures that will turn to angling as surely as the needle turns 

 towards the Pole. 



I know he, like myself, reads the Field every Sunday 

 morning before service, at least that department which 

 concerns angling, and once he preached a sermon upon the 

 miraculous draught of fishes. It was a marvel of piscatorial 

 research, with a spiritual " tag " attached for the sake of 

 appearances. He had ransacked the British Museum for 

 information respecting the Sea of Galilee, and after 

 numerous consultations with me over a pipe, produced to 

 his puzzled parishioners a list and technical description of 

 the fishes known or supposed to swim in that historic lake. 

 These he rolled off his tongue with all their Latin nomen- 

 clature, and his final conclusion was that the fish which 

 broke the apostles' net was of the bream family, though, as 

 he carefully explained, not precisely the same kind of bream 

 as that caught in this neighbourhood. 



As I am known far and wide hereabouts as a man who 

 thinks of little else but fish and fishing, the congregation 

 focussed their gaze with one consent upon me during the 

 entire sermon, appearing to think that I must have had 

 something to do with that beautifully-portrayed fishing 

 picture of eighteen centuries' imprint. 



The winter fishing in our neighbourhood is extremely 

 good; not that it is better than our summer sport, but, 

 being pursued under difficulties that well become a man, 



