DRY-FLY MEDITATIONS 91 



4.30 p.m., and since g a.m. there has not been a single 

 honest rise of honest fish to break the surface. 

 " Whaur," in the words of a great and knowledgeable 

 band of fishermen beyond the Border, " is your dree 

 flee noo ?" To be candid, it is stuck in the little ring 

 on the butt, and there it has been all day, save at a few 

 desperate junctures when it has been chucking and 

 chancing over the inhospitable waters. One fish came 

 at it at 11.50 a.m. But by reason of the mathematical 

 truth that the less is unable to contain the greater, 

 nothing was born of the proceeding. Had the fly gone 

 for the fish, belike result would have been more patent. 

 Tea, that modest stimulant and the comfort that 

 comes of it ! Many a dark mood has been charmed 

 away by the brown teapot and the daintily-spread table 

 in the keeper's cottage. Besides, there is a book on a 

 shelf of which a few pages are bound to encourage 

 Making a Fishery. Really, it is absurdly easy to make 

 a fishery, one reflects, as one reads and finds out how 

 it is done. The only wonder is that more people have 

 not performed the small feat. All one has to do is to 

 cut weeds, kill pike, put in trout with discretion. 

 And having done it, there only remains the catching of 

 them. That is all. Here it is now 5 p.m., and we 

 have been at that game all day. Something is needed 

 besides making your fishery : you must make your rise 

 of fly, and your feeding fish, and your favourable 

 weather. Even then, probably 5 p.m. would come 

 upon you with something still unmade, and your fish 

 uncaught. These meditations last over the first cup of 

 tea. With the second the heart begins to expand. 

 On a nail by the mantelpiece hangs a battered pike 



