36 FISHERMEN 



mothy the sort of man that one can 

 never imagine ever having been a boy 

 who with long claw-like hands once 

 tied his own flies upon gut of his own 

 manufacture, is a memory one would in 

 these days unwillingly lose. He was 

 never known to fish, yet his knowledge 

 of the art was extraordinary, and the 

 stream that to-day tumbles noisily past 

 the place where he sleeps seemed as fa- 

 miliar to him in every bend and corner 

 as the view down the village street seen 

 from the window of his dingy shop. 



Then there is another rustic celebrity 

 in the art often as not a diminutive 

 hunchback who, whether we ignore 

 his faithful attachment to "local" pat- 

 terns and refute his arguments, which 

 are so often opposed to every canon of 

 scientific fishing, still catches fish. Who 

 has not seen him making his way up- 

 stream, ever before us, moving in and 

 out between the boulders with the jerky, 



