2 THE TROUT ARE RISING 



mind nearly forty years later on a fishing tour 

 on the Arrow, when just outside Kington, a 

 market town in Herefordshire, I saw some little 

 girls, paddling in thin water, busy at the same old 

 game. The earnestness of it ! The stern purpose 

 of the shrill voice with the Welsh accent which 

 suddenly tore the air ! " If you touch the fish 

 again, I'll smack you on the chops ! " 



The brooklet at Market Drayton having 

 afforded many hours of wholesome, boyish joy, 

 we passed on to bigger things, and our next 

 efforts were made on the local canal, without, 1 

 am afraid, the superintendent's permission. Here 

 was made the first " throw-in," as we anglers call 

 it, one solemn evening. The rod was frail, the 

 line of the cheapest, but there was a suspicion of 

 gut with a colourable hook. We were equipped, 

 yet the evening yielded not perch, roach, dace, 

 gudgeon, or even daddy-ruffe. Now, after many 

 moons, mature reflection shows this to have been 

 no matter for surprise. For in the joy and 

 excitement of being able actually to fish with rod 

 and line so infinitely superior a business to 

 scooping two-inch jack-sharps out of the water 

 with the hands and hurling them on to the bank 

 it had not yet occurred to me that putting some 

 bait, worm or paste, on the hook, was at least 

 fashionable, and a thing done in all the best 

 bottom-fishing circles ! Maybe there was a vague 

 idea that a call of " Fish ! Fish ! " would bring 

 response from the canal as a call of "Bunny ! 

 Bunny ! " would bring response from the rabbit- 



