A DAY ON CHALKLEY'S 215 



So he departed, and the angler was left to meditate 

 on the doctrines of perseverance, which are the only 

 doctrines worth remembering on the College Fishery, 

 better known to fame, perhaps, as " Chalkley's." The 

 fish now in the bag had been an inmate of the side- 

 stream which anglers know as the " millpond." With 

 sundry others he had been smutting all the morning, 

 and he had rejected, as had the others, practically 

 every known pattern of winged fly, together with 

 several different varieties of what tackle- makers fondly 

 imagine to be the curse, though no tackle-maker that 

 was ever apprenticed has yet been able to devise any- 

 thing which is sufficiently accursed, and yet has some 

 hooking power. At last, however, there dimly awoke 

 the memory of words written by one who was trained 

 on the water, and who has left a great reputation 

 behind him. The fly-box was taken out once more, 

 and the flies were again considered. A small black 

 fly with very sparse soft hackle was found, tied on, and 

 presented to the fish, which took it at once. Several 

 other black hackle flies had been tried before, but all 

 had been abundantly and rather stiffly dressed, and the 

 incident seems to show that one black fly is not always 

 as good as another, even though they be of the same 

 apparent size. Having arrived at this conclusion, the 

 angler went off to a belated lunch. 



Between lunch and tea the wind blew, thunder was 

 imminent, the public passed, repassed, and passed 

 again along the footpath which skirts the millpond, 

 while the dogs belonging to the public plunged merrily 

 into the water nicely within casting distance. Also 

 there came two, one on each bank, with a weed-cutting 



