DAYS AT DRIFFIELD 135 



good basket of trout. Non cuivis homini there are 

 few men in these days who could get an opportunity 

 of pioneer work like this. 



There is yet another thing about Driffield which 

 made an impression on me a personal matter, per- 

 haps. As we journeyed from York by the early train 

 on that first day my host cast a discriminating eye 

 over the wolds and predicted a thunderstorm. To 

 me the sky looked a little cloudy, and the air seemed 

 sultry, but I hoped for the best ; in the south I have 

 known many a sultry day pass without any event so 

 disturbing as thunder. At Driffield, however, it 

 appears that thunderstorms occur every few hours, or 

 so, after we had thoroughly discussed the subject and 

 exchanged reminiscences of distressing fatalities, I 

 gathered. I do not like thunderstorms, but my friend 

 is very cheerful about them. To his courageous mind 

 each storm represents so many brace of fish ; to my 

 timorous soul it means so many hours wasted (from 

 an angling point of view) under the nearest roof. 

 Ajax is sometimes held up as an ensample because he 

 defied the lightning, but I remember acutely that he 

 came to a bad end. The nearer we got to Driffield 

 the less inclined did I become for either defiance or a 

 bad end, for the coming storm was obvious and most 

 alarming. 



But the beck was waiting, and I made up my mind 

 to defy, mildly and with reservation, anything that 

 might be coming, and by a little after 9 a.m. was 

 covering the first fish just above a stone bridge which 

 crosses the Sunderlandwick stream. The first effort 

 was not a success, and the fish went down with all the 



