IN THE MIDLANDS. 101 



" The darned skunks, they've winded us, guvnor." 



Be that as it may, in a few moments the hubbub recom- 

 menced many yards above us, and then all was silent as 

 before. After a decent pause, the bream having evidently 

 retreated upon their former position below, the plunges 

 began again, and another cautious upward movement com- 

 menced ; and to our delight this time there were no indica- 

 tions that the fish had passed us. 



The boatman then deftly threw out his baits and fixed his 

 rods under the thwarts, and I followed his example with my 

 lighter implements. Five minutes elapsed, when down went 

 both of his floats. They came up, went down, came up, 

 and again went down, while the fisherman grimly sucked his 

 Brobdingnagian cigarette. Soon a decisive slanting move- 

 ment of the long float led him to strike sharply, and his great 

 rod bent to the encounter. Two or three struggles appeared 

 to exhaust the bream, and they were netted in succession 

 without much finessing or trouble. .My companion thus 

 caught seven fish in the course of an hour. Then my turn 

 arrived. To my chagrin I had been wholly unable to throw 

 my delicate tackle out to the baited ground, but now the 

 porcupine quill went clear away at a shoot ; to be brief, the 

 drawn gut parted at the sullen resistance to the too eager 

 strike, and the boatman, emitting a great oath, said we should 

 get no more sport. 



"If it had been summer," he said, "it would not have 

 mattered so much ; we should have whacked 'em out like a 

 shot ; but it's all up now." 



And even so it proved. 



The processes necessary to successful bream-fishing, like 

 those insisted upon by barbel-fishers, are not nice. Ground 



