ON THE GLOUCESTERSHIRE COLN 173 



sits apart, thinking how he may give up fishing in so 

 marked a way as to cause some stir in the world 

 always a difficult problem. A letter to the Times, con- 

 taining the dignified "Now, sir" thrice and "any 

 thinking man " once, is the solution usually determined 

 upon iby bedroom-candle time. And on the morrow 

 you shall see him fishing once more, with countenance 

 as amiable as ever, a brace of fish in his creel, and the 

 Bibury glare a thing clean gone out of mind. 



My host is a noticing man, and he told me these 

 things. But he did not tell me them until his dis- 

 criminating eye had had me under observation for the 

 greater part of a day. After the test he was good 

 enough to say that he had not noticed anything more 

 desperate than usual about my fishing countenance. 

 But (I will be candid) I was hid round a bend at the 

 moment when I was debating within myself whether I 

 should or should not throw my oil-bottle, which had 

 annoyed me, into the river for ever. The fact that 

 there was no pool deep and dark enough for my purpose 

 saved the bottle, but I must plead guilty to the Bibury 

 glare. There was also a half-hour in the meadow at 

 the bottom of the Swan water. The trout had just 

 begun to rise, and I had just discovered that they 

 would take one of the new Halford spinners. I found 

 this out by leaving one in a fish's mouth. 



After that I had four left. The next fish covered 

 took greedily, and ran through a patch of weed I 

 hand-lined, let all go slack, pulled gently, pulled hard, 

 and all was to no purpose. Then I became aware that 

 the fish was not in the weed at all ; he was lying, played 

 out, just beyond it. The gut was apparently hitched 



