164 AN OPEN CREEL 



slowly out of the bush for about a foot, looked round 

 for flies, and went back again. Altering my tone, I 

 suggested that the fish might, at any rate, be risen, 

 though in all likelihood it would go back to the bush 

 with the fly. To be brief, I placed my spent gnat just 

 where the fish had been, waited for a minute or two, 

 and had the wished-for rise. But, being again para- 

 lyzed with terror, I made a mess of it, pulled the fly 

 away, and retired, feeling foolish. My friend waited for 

 some time to try another fly, but saw the fish no more, 

 and finally departed, having to seek other waters in 

 another county. He committed the trout to me with 

 his blessing, and about an hour later I rose and missed 

 it again. At last, just before tea-time, Fortune smiled, 

 and after my fly had been waiting by the bush for 

 several minutes it disappeared, and I was pulling a 

 surprised fish by main force away from the bush. So 

 surprised was it that, although well set up and shaped, 

 it made quite a poor fight, and I got it to the net with- 

 out trouble. With a brace of fish weighing five and a 

 quarter pounds, I felt satisfied, and did not grumble 

 even when an evening mist spoilt the last hour of the 

 day, and prevented me, as I maintain, from catching a 

 monster of five pounds which I had just discovered. 



The narrative now ceases to be triumphant. On 

 the third morning, beneath heavy, lowering skies, I 

 spent two and a half hours over two fish, wanderers 

 both, and one of them in an appallingly difficult place 

 under a tree whose branches dipped into the water. 

 Each was feeding with quiet persistence, and seemed a 

 certainty if one could only place a fly before it. I 

 hooked the first, a probable two-pounder, after an 



