A FIRST SPRINGER AND SOME OTHERS 89 



On this bright day I resolved to try to write up my 

 notes, in the fervent hope that every good sentence 

 would be spoiled by a summons from one of the four 

 rods of which I was in command. For one hour my 

 pencil wrought without a pause, and delightful it was 

 under the sunshine to indite to the steady strokes of 

 two pair of oars, the rhythmic swish of the water, 

 now tranquilly flowing, and easy for all of us. 



Fortunately our most unlikely water came first, and 

 all the while the frost would be getting out of the water. 

 It was a very heavy reach, and Tay was still too big for 

 such ; fish would be lying lower down, and those that 

 we were rowing over would not take well. Those five 

 lovely springers that I mentioned before must have 

 come out of a particularly favourable stretch. That is 

 part of the glorious uncertainty of it all. The boat of 

 to-day, for example, accounted yesterday for one soli- 

 tary kelt, though it had shared our experience of futile 



pulls and visible rises in the afternoon. Now if 



Ah ! The shrill tongue of Tom Thumb's reel gave a 

 welcome view holloa (half-past eleven) and the sentence 

 I was pencilling remains unfinished. I have forgotten 

 what it would have been. By this time the motions of 

 a kelt had become familiar, and I liked not the docility 

 with which this fellow allowed himself to be towed to 

 land, nor his inertness when I had him in grip after- 

 wards. My verdict I gave in a look at the headman, 

 and his confirmation of my unspoken thought was, 

 " Yes ; he's too quiet." Yet it was a long while before 

 I could get him up sufficiently for recognition beyond 

 doubt ; that accomplished, it was short shrift. He 

 was lifted into the boat by the tail, the triangles came 

 out easily under the knife, and off went a well-mended 

 fish of about 13 Ib. That is to say, I call him a fish ; 

 the boatmen decline to render even tlhis nominal honour, 



