n8 AN OPEN CREEL 



Later in the same summer, however, I came upon an 

 ancient bream-fisher at dusk perched on a camp-stool, 

 and brooding over the quiet waters like some sad 

 heron. Attached to the top of his float was a feather 

 blacker than the impending gloom, and therefore 

 visible against the water-line longer than anything 

 else. 



A man of few words, that ancient. He may perhaps 

 have been susceptible to the mysteries of night, the 

 rustling and whispering of unseen creatures, the 

 melancholy owls in the woods behind, the low murmur 

 of the restless river, the reflected track of the stars 

 growing ever fainter as dawn approached, to the 

 deathly chill of the darkest hour. But of these things 

 he said nothing ; his hope was a sackful of bream 

 before sunrise. I sometimes pick up out of a drawer 

 a queer little black object with a fat white head, which 

 I am informed is a " luminous " float, and so often as 

 I do so I think of that old bream-fisher sitting solitary 

 through the nights, and wonder whether he ever met 

 the river-god face to face. For my part, I never could 

 catch anything to speak of in the dark, and the 

 luminous float goes back into the drawer where it has 

 lain all these years unused. 



One old writer, by the way, two hundred years ago 

 commended to his disciples the use of glow-worms 

 imprisoned in a clear quill float, and is minute in his 

 instructions as to getting the best light out of them ! 

 But I suspect him of depending on tradition rather 

 than on experience. He is more practical when he 

 comes to a float of reed : 



" Note, if at any time the angler should be destitute 

 of floats when he comes to the water-side to angle, and 



