8o AN OPEN CREEL 



them from there by reason of the herbage and the 

 drag ; it is doubtful if even the master could. To 

 cover them you must kneel far away downstream on 

 knobby lumps of chalk, which is not at all comfortable ; 

 and you must keep your shoulders low, and your head 

 lower, and your rod lowest ; and you must cast twenty- 

 two yards at least ; and the wind must be blowing into 

 your face (or the immortals will not be feeding) ; and 

 you must make allowances for the fact that the fish 

 are in a bay where the water is slack, while your line 

 is extended over a rapid glide, and in no wise able to 

 linger in sympathy with the fly ; there is every material 

 for distress. But some men know no hesitations, and 

 that other had built him a new fly, one of those super- 

 imagines whose hackles blaze red at one angle, light 

 yellow at another, gold at another, and so forth an 

 irresistible fly, indeed, to all fish of ordinary curiosity. 

 So he approached to the attack with confidence, crept 

 up to the knobby ridge of chalk, and then knelt on his 

 right knee. 



Meanwhile the immortals, each some four yards 

 apart from each, fed in a stately row, one at the head, 

 another in the middle, and the third at the tail, of the 

 little bay. They were all plainly visible to the observer, 

 whose feet were in the ditch and whose head among 

 the herbage, for the sun was doing them honour. The 

 angler did not open the campaign all at once. He 

 transferred himself and his weight rather suddenly to 

 his left knee, and laid his rod down that he might rub 

 the right. Soon after he had to rub the left, and his 

 face was as the face of one who suffers. Without 

 knee-pads knobby lumps of chalk are not every man's 



