MUSINGS OF A BUSH RIDE 61 



charming to behold. As day declined they rose short, 

 and when the vapours began to distil from the meadows 

 they retired from business. 



The keeper volunteered a statement. He said he 

 would not care to carry the basket half a dozen miles ; 

 whereupon I offered a suggestion. Acting upon this, 

 he turned the spoil out upon the buttercups. There 

 were thirty trout, averaging Ib. each, and not reckon- 

 ing the invalid, which came out on the top of the heap, 

 so mottled and dull that it bore no resemblance to its 

 beautiful associates. The keeper that night received 

 double largess. I had to exercise much self-control to 

 keep myself from smiting him familiarly on the back 

 and executing a Red Indian war dance around the 

 victims. He said he hoped I would come again to 

 those regions, turned over the coin I gave him, and 

 intimated that if the trout (which he was now packing 

 neatly into the creel) were not satisfied with the gentle- 

 manly manner in which they were treated they would 

 be pleased at nothing. And it was not for me to 

 dissent or rebuke. 



My best-day memory of grayling fishing up to my 

 colonial interlude is of a wet, muggy November day in 

 Herefordshire. It was late in the month, and as the 

 previous week had been marked by early frost, the sere 

 leaves, having lost their grip, were rattling down on 

 the water with every gust, and, indeed, from the mere 

 weight of the rain. It was pretty practice, dropping 

 the flies so as to avoid these little impediments ; but 

 it wasted time and strained the temper, for, according 

 to custom in grayling land at that period, one had 

 attached three or four flies to the cast, and thereby 

 increased the chances of fouling. Yet I finished the 

 day with eighteen grayling, to be placed to the contra 

 account against a most complete soaking. The better 



