THE INCALCULABLE GRAYLING 189 



business ; there is something almost liturgical, solemn, 

 about it: in extreme cases it leads to letters to the 

 Field headed " Grayling in Trout Streams " than 

 when I tried to catch him at Hungerford a little while 

 ago. He did all the things calculated to provoke. 

 For instance, from the tail of my eye I watched him 

 influencing my friend the doctor, about the completest 

 and most skilful fisherman of my knowledge a man 

 who is nothing if not a philosopher ; a man who has 

 been known to lose fifteen salmon in a day through 

 sheer malice of Fate, and yet fare forth as cheerfully 

 as was decent on the morrow. This philosopher, then 

 I was angling at the next bend, so could both see 

 and hear was at first mildly surprised at the behaviour 

 of his shoal of grayling. "They rise all right, but I'm 

 hanged if I can hook them !" floated down the breeze. 

 Then there was an interval. Then came " Confound 

 the brutes !" Again an interval. Then " Con found 

 the brutes !" and afterwards alternate voicelessness 

 and speech, until at last a grim silence reigned. I 

 may have relieved it myself; I won't certainly deny it, 

 because very annoying things were happening to me 

 too. But the philosopher spoke no more, until in 

 tones of studious, if icy, moderation he observed, " I'm 

 going to count these rises ; they're very remarkable. 

 One, two, three," and so on, till he got to eight, when 

 more cheerfully he ejaculated, "Got him!" A heavy 

 plunge announced a fine fish, but it was a trout ! 

 And he lost it at the net's edge, so the grayling con- 

 tinued to have the laugh of us. The Rennet very 

 nearly caused the heading of this to be " Grayling in 

 Trout Streams." 



