i io LINES IN PLEASANT PLACES 



acquaintance with barbel is also so limited that it 

 counts for little. In a well-known barbel hole of the 

 Kennet I fished in vain ; once in April I caught a 

 gravid specimen spinning for trout in a Thames weir ; 

 while spinning for pike I have hooked small barbel 

 foul by the tail as they stood on their heads at the 

 bottom of a mill pool when the wheel was stopped. 

 This acquaintance, in fact, was intermittent and casual. 

 But I bear in mind one day of close intimacy with 

 the strong, sporting barbel ; and on this March morning, 

 when the windows are being bombarded with snow, 

 hail, and sleet, making it, I trust, bad for the Zeppelins, 

 I intend to lose myself in the impressions of that one 

 instance of intimate terms with the fish. It must have 

 been in late autumn, for I seem to hear a sad sobbing 

 of wind from the elms, and a whispered dispersal of 

 decayed leaves, loosened by recent white frosts. 



I remember, too, that the professional fisherman, 

 Hawkins, was very hopeful. He said his comrade, 

 Jorkins, on the previous day, with two patrons from 

 town, had had fine sport amongst the barbel, although 

 the fish did not run particularly large, and he added 

 that he had often known before, in previous years, a 

 sudden eruption of cold weather sharpen the appetites 

 of the fish and bring them on, as he termed it, head- 

 long, for a fortnight or three weeks. 



After all, there is something pleasant and soothing 

 to the middle-aged and somewhat lazy man in sitting 

 upon a Windsor chair in a punt, with pleasant objects 

 to look at on either bank, with a tranquilly flowing 

 stream between, and an occasional boat or barge mov- 

 ing up or down. The Castle, the familiar church, and 

 the customary house-tops, were prominent features in 

 the picture ; and now and then the distant scream of 

 a railway whistle and rumble of a train came in to save 



