ioo IN PURSUIT OF THE MAY FLY 



him, considering the situation, rather skilfully. By 

 this success I was emboldened to try a still more 

 difficult task, standing exactly on the same spot. A 

 trout was rising higher up and more towards the 

 middle of the stream, but close under a small island 

 of weeds. The Professor said it was sheer folly to 

 make the attempt, and he was quite right. My 

 first cast fixed my fly high up in a branch of the 

 overhanging alder. Sometimes a sharp tug will 

 dislodge it from the tender young twigs, but not so 

 on this occasion. I am a bit too old, especially 

 when encumbered with heavy wading boots, to 

 scramble up trees. Not so the Professor ; he was 

 determined that collar should not be lost. He is 

 no longer young, but he is tough. How he laboured 

 and puffed and squeezed himself up that tree was 

 a sight to see. He soon released my collar. That 

 confounded trout kept on rising. I tried all I could 

 to get round the drooping branches of that alder to 

 avoid the signal-wire above me and the trees and 

 bushes behind and in front of me. I thought I had 

 got my line out in spite of these obstacles, when a 

 sudden gust from the east drove my fly up into 

 that alder and lodged it in its old quarters. My good 

 Professor had scarcely landed from the tree in a 

 state of physical collapse. He did not use bad 

 language, because he never does. Up he went 

 again, and down he brought my fly once more, but 

 I made no further attempt to get over that still 

 rising trout. The Professor, who is a score of years 

 my junior, did not forget to lecture me on my 



