40 AN OPEN CREEL 



evening they have the advantage. Brook trout lose 

 their gold, but dace preserve their silver. One good 

 angler informed me (rather apologetically) that he pro- 

 posed to have his catch to breakfast. No apology was 

 needed, for, bones admitted and extracted, dace are 

 good meat as good as many trout. 



But dace are not the whole of Isleworth fishing. 

 There is the daily wonder of the great river shrinking 

 away so that a man may go dry-foot (or practically so) 

 along its gravel bed, and see only a clear, shallow 

 stream where a few hours back was a deep, turbid 

 flood ; there is the awful pleasure of imagining what 

 would happen if one were caught suddenly by the turn 

 of the tide, for one is so low down in the world that it 

 seems wellnigh impossible to climb up that steep bank 

 through the mud to the grounds of Zion House ; there 

 is the wonderful solitude almost within sound of 

 London a small human figure or so up at the ferry, 

 perhaps, and about the brown-sailed barges at the 

 distant quay, but for the rest no sign of life except a 

 gull or two wheeling round, some rooks exploring the 

 naked river-bed, and the dace dimpling the surface of 

 the quiet stream. 



Then, when the tide has turned (and may you be not 

 too far from the ferry when that happens !), there is a 

 late tea at the London Apprentice, the quaint old inn 

 near the church. The view from its billiard-room 

 window up stream and down is alone worth the 

 journey. After it there is the return in the ferry-boat, 

 with a long backward look at the riverside street and 

 the old church beneath their canopy of crimson sky ; 

 the meditative walk back along the towpath under the 





