156 LINES IN PLEASANT PLACES 



these sufficiently told me that he had not the ghost 

 of an idea of the perturbation that had been seething 

 in me. It took him the rest of the week to cease re- 

 gretting that he had been so unobservant, and never 

 again during the remaining eight-and-twenty years 

 that we fished together at different times and in divers 

 places did he once depart from his resolve " never to do 

 so no more." During our long and happy acquaintance 

 that was the only cloud flitting over the sunshine of our 

 friendship, and it was one of my making. 



After Houghton there was a farmhouse at Head- 

 bourne Worthy, and a season's fishing in the Itchen, 

 and later Halford fished a good deal below Winchester, 

 where Cooke, Daniels, and Williamson had private 

 waters. But after Houghton the most notable pre- 

 serve to be mentioned was the Ramsbury water on the 

 Kennet. The inspiration of " Making a Fishery " came 

 from that, for the four friends who leased the water 

 Basil Field, Orchardson, R.A., N. Lloyd, and Halford 

 earnestly addressed themselves to the reformation of 

 a fishery that had become depreciated. They spent 

 much money, and carried out operations with a lavish 

 hand for four seasons. The story has been fully nar- 

 rated by Halford, and the conclusion (p. 217, Auto- 

 biography) is in these words : " We had perhaps been 

 extravagant in our expenditure, and also over-sanguine 

 as to the probable result. The river when we took 

 possession swarmed with pike and dace, and had a 

 few trout in the lower part, and in the upper was fairly 

 stocked. When we gave it up the pike had been prac- 

 tically exterminated, and every yard of the river was 

 fully stocked with trout of strains far superior to the 

 indigenous slimy, yellow Salmo fario of the Kennet." 



The plain fact was that at the end of four years four 

 of the best of our dry-fly fishers gave up a water of 



