2IO THOMAS KEN AND IZAAK WALTON 



his having been a welcome visitor to Beresford 

 Hall ; but, as has already been said, there is nothing 

 to show that he ever actually saw the completed 

 Fisking-house. A journey from Winchester to 

 Beresford Hall would have been no trifling under- 

 taking for even a vigorous old man of eighty-three 

 in those rough times — and all we know is that on 

 April 29, 1676, Walton wrote to Cotton — 



" Though I be more than a hundred miles 

 from you and in the eighty-third year of my 

 age, yet I will forget both, and next month 

 begin a Pilgrimage to beg your pardon, for, 

 I would dye in your favour ; and till then will 

 live, sir, 



" Your most aff'^ Father and friend, 



" IzAAK Walton." 



(Did he pay that visit ? No one knows — the 

 probability is that he did not.) 



We have still to account for the last thirty-one 

 years of Walton's life, spent mainly at Winchester. 

 I have already imagined partly how those peaceful, 

 uneventful days were spent, for although he is 

 silent himself we must insist that much of his time 

 was spent in fishing ; and for the rest he seems to 



