4 AN OPEN CREEL 



had ever put him there. He remains a mystery unsolved 

 to this day. 



There were other ponds in Arden the stickleback 

 pond which was within the school grounds, the newt 

 pond in the copse where the bluebells grew, and others 

 further afield which held genuine fish. To angle in 

 these we had to be very subtle, and to escape the notice 

 of the authorities in our exits and entrances. Even a 

 telescopic Japanese rod does not look like a very con- 

 vincing walking-stick, and an ordinary rod concealed 

 partly by trousers and partly by coat must give its 

 owner a curious gait. Perhaps the authorities winked 

 at our ruses innocentes, perhaps we were never discovered. 

 At any rate, I remember no dire penalties incurred on 

 that count, though for other offences we were rightly 

 chastised now and then. One of the distant ponds 

 held a species of merry little fish of a reddish-bronze 

 colour, which we never could catch. They would come 

 and suck at the Russian lily-leaves close by our very 

 feet in the most impudent manner, but they would not 

 take any kind of paste or grub or worm, at any rate 

 with a hook in it. What they were I still do not know, 

 but I think they may have been crucian carp. 



Another pond, which was really a kind of backwater 

 of the river, was a very thrilling place. Here we angled 

 concealed amongst the bushes at its edge in great fear 

 and trembling, for not only was the place forbidden by 

 the general law of piscary, but the school authorities 

 used often to walk this way ; moreover, there was a 

 fierce notice-board upon a neighbouring tree, and the 

 landowner was an object of much awe to us, being an 

 intimate friend of the authorities, and therefore, pre- 



