6 AN OPEN CREEL 



had even more wonderful results, and the hero came 

 back with two fish bigger than seemed possible. They 

 were bream, he said, and they weighed about two and a 

 half pounds apiece. He was good enough to reward our 

 open-mouthed admiration with some instructions on 

 the art of catching these leviathans. I can still remem- 

 ber his telling us that you had to have two rods, bait 

 with lobworms on the bottom, and sit afar off, main- 

 taining absolute silence until a bite came. I have a 

 shrewd suspicion that he had learnt these facts himself 

 for the first time that very day (from the keeper), but I 

 may be wrong ; perhaps jealousy still lingers. In those 

 better days, though I envied, I thought no guile. The 

 opportunity of fishing that lake never came to me at 

 that time, but in after years I visited it more than once. 

 It is sad that the visits only led to a conviction that 

 " we are not such as we were," and that it is unwise to 

 seek interpretation of a happy dream. 



One more pond is still vividly pictured before my 

 eyes, and yet I only saw it twice. The authorities rode 

 now and then to visit a clerical friend a good many 

 miles away, and twice, on early summer afternoons, 

 another boy and I went also on the ponies which were 

 hired two or three times a week for our instruction in 

 the art of riding. We thoroughly enjoyed these excur- 

 sions, for the rector's cakes were of very noble quality 

 and profusion. I was in a mood of great spiritual 

 exaltation, after partaking thereof, when I first saw the 

 pond, so my first impressions may have been trans- 

 cendental. But undoubtedly the pond was a very lovely 

 place. It lay at some distance from the house, and one 

 had to jump down a ha-ha from the lawn, then crossing 



