16 AN OPEN CREEL 



venture methodically. But there were no results. 

 Whole gardens of vegetables, pots of honey, loaves of 

 bread were squandered, nests of wasps, hills of ants, 

 heaps of mixen were ransacked to make them bite, but 

 they rolled on undismayed, uninterested. The wonder 

 was how fish that never ate anything could be so 

 round, so obviously bloated with excess of good living. 

 Probably they did eat, but only after the angler was 

 gone. The monks had taught them, in their days of 

 comparative youth, that it was unwise to feed when a 

 long straight thing cast its shadow over the water. 

 And a lesson once learnt is with a carp never forgotten. 

 What the monsters weighed none may know, but some 

 of them were as big as market-going porkers. 



When the time wasted on these insensate wretches 

 had run into a term of weeks the roach were discovered. 

 Little ones, indeed, had been caught now and then on 

 the carp tackle, but no serious roach-fishing had been 

 attempted, because the carp had been too big and too 

 obvious. Then one day, at the time of the ebb, a little 

 red worm was dropped casually over the bridge that 

 crossed the culvert into the creek. The float was fixed 

 about three feet from the hook, and swam merrily 

 down towards the brook. But not far, for almost at 

 once it went under as though the hook had caught on 

 the bottom. The rod was lifted to free it, and then a 

 gleam in the water revealed the true cause, and a 

 gallant roach of fully one and a quarter pounds was 

 fighting for his liberty. He was landed, the hook was 

 re-baited, and immediately a second glittering fish with 

 ruddy fins took his place in the battle. Before the 

 water had ceased to ebb a dozen handsome roach lay 



