10 INTRODUCTION 



agriculture, out-of-door life generally might be woven 

 into the warp and woof of the fabric, I became elo- 

 quent ; for, as I have said, out of the heart the mouth 

 spoke. So it was agreed, and for a while " Red Spin- 

 ner's " articles graced the pages of the magazine, and 

 they were by and by republished in Waterside Sketches. 

 They afterwards gave me entrance to BeWs Life and to 

 the Field, and a name at any rate amongst the brethren 

 of the Angle, as to which I must not gush, but which 

 is very dear to the musings of an old man's eventide. 

 How much I owe to " Red Spinner " I shall never 

 know. The name has followed me, and my brothers of 

 the Highbury Anglers have adopted it, but last year, 

 in honour of their always loyal, but I feel sure no longer 

 useful President. I was much amused to find how it 

 had also followed me to Queensland. During one of 

 the Parliamentary recesses I went up country, the 

 guest of a squatter who was afterwards in the Minis- 

 try, and he introduced me to a fellow squatter member 

 in my surname as an officer of Parliament. Neither 

 the name nor office meant anything to him. But 

 when we were smoking in the veranda, and my friend 

 mentioned, as an aside, that I was " Red Spinner," the 

 visitor leaped to his feet, came at me with a double 

 grip, and shouted a Scotch salmon-fisher's welcome, 

 turning to my host and furiously demanding, " Why 

 the dickens didn't you tell me so at first ? " 



On another Bush visit an officer in the Mounted 

 Police showed me amongst his curiosities a copy of 

 Waterside Sketches half devoured by dingoes, and found 

 with the scraps scattered around the skeleton of a poor 

 wayfarer left at the foot of a gum-tree. To fly-fishers 

 the name had an intelligible story of course, and it 

 puzzled those non-anglers for whom I tried always 

 to write. The scores of times I was asked " What 



