VEXATIONS AND CONSOLATIONS 129 



tant factor, say winch and line, behind you. To have 

 brought the winch that does not fit your rod may be 

 got over by binding on with a piece of your line ; but 

 the general variety of winch fitting is certainly a com- 

 mon trouble for anglers. Nor is it any good to boast 

 of bringing your handle if you have overlooked the 

 net ; nor to take gigantic pains to buy live baits in 

 London only to find that the water has leaked out long 

 before you leave the train in Leicestershire. I have 

 known a fly-fisher wretched for a whole day because 

 he had not brought the bit of indiarubber with which 

 he was in the habit of straightening out his cast ; and 

 a roach-fisher refuse to be comforted because his 

 plummet was not. 



You cannot, however, control the wind and weather ; 

 yet some men seem to be under a climatic curse. Any 

 landowners whose crops require rain have only to 

 invite them down for a day's fishing ; there will be 

 rain enough and to spare. No hankerer after an east 

 wind should be without them. It shall breathe south- 

 west balm when they start for the fishing ; they will 

 be met at the waterside by a blustering Boreas with 

 out-puffed cheeks. Yesterday the wind would take 

 the fly where wanted ; to-morrow it will do the same ; 

 to-day it is dead down-stream or in the angler's face. 

 This is no doubt inveterate ill-luck, and the victim is 

 to be commiserated. You can quite believe him when 

 he says that if he takes a fishing for August there will 

 be no water ; if for September, perpetual flood ; and 

 when, the week after his return to town, he greets you 

 with a sickly smile and volunteers the information 

 that the day succeeding his departure the river at once 

 got into ply, you deal gently with the young man, for this 

 verily is tribulation major, and it may be your turn to 

 meet it round a corner next year. I suppose there are 



