XII DAYS AT DRIFFIELD ^ ^ & 



WHEN a friend, who is a member of that most 

 select of fishing clubs which preserves and 

 cherishes the Driffield Beck, asked me for the first 

 time to join him in a few days' fishing on the water, I 

 was in no sort of doubt as to my answer. Everything 

 that I had ever heard about the famous stream impelled 

 me to enthusiastic acceptance. For one thing, there 

 were the silver tickets. A silver ticket has always 

 seemed to me the grandest of conceptions a thing 

 permanent as the hills, and yet transferable as the airs 

 of heaven. One or two happy anglers have I known 

 who for a period of years were always privileged to 

 borrow one of these emblems of landlordship, though 

 none of them, so far as I know, ever made much use 

 of the privilege. But that they had the freedom of 

 Driffteld water made them seem great, possibly in their 

 own eyes (for the feeling of power is seductive), and 

 certainly in mine. 



Then there was the famous limit of " ten brace." 

 This is as grand in its way as the silver tickets ; at 

 any rate, it seems so to the South Countryman. On 

 the southern dry-fly streams where the limit system 

 is in force one is accustomed to something very much 



