ON THE GLOUCESTERSHIRE COLN 181 



full of variety and equally full of trout, and the man 

 who cannot amuse himself very well there on a fresh 

 May morning must be hard to please. The ticket- 

 water (it was till recently attached to the Bull Hotel, 

 and is known to history as the " Bull Water "; tickets 

 can still be obtained there as of old) extends from 

 Fairford Bridge downstream for about a mile and a 

 half, and every yard of it is interesting. The trout, of 

 course, are difficult to catch ; but, after all, that is 

 a necessary part of modern dry-fly fishing. It adds 

 zest to the game. 



The first time I visited Fairford was one Whitsun- 

 tide a few years ago, and I was, I remember, very 

 much shocked at the weather vouchsafed ; so was 

 every other member of the genial company assembled 

 at the Bull. We were a trustful lot, and we had not 

 taken the ordinary precautions. The ordinary pre- 

 cautions are these : When a man has resolved to give 

 himself a fishing holiday, he should first fix on the 

 date for starting, and afterwards publish the fact 

 abroad. He should tell his friends, his enemies, the 

 man in the street or the train, the waiter in his 

 restaurant everybody, in fact, who has the slightest 

 excuse for interest in his doings. It would be well 

 also to insert a paragraph in the columns devoted 

 to fashionable intelligence, which ought in itself to 

 give the matter enough publicity to insure the attention 

 of the clerk of the weather, whose business it is to 

 frustrate all that man proposes, and to turn on the 

 east wind to that end. But the angler, having done 

 all that is here counselled, should unostentatiously and 

 without much luggage depart a week earlier than the 



