CONTRARIES OF WEATHER AND SPORT 205 



same fly. It was as a Clydesdale to a thoroughbred. 

 Seeing must then have been believing. 



For the present let us forget that wet week. We 

 will return to the rain, perhaps, another day ; suffice 

 now to state that we had three weeks of it three 

 weeks and never a day without mackintoshes. Last 

 night it must have snowed pretty hard up on the fjelds, 

 for there are at this moment white mantles lower down 

 on the mountains than have been seen for many a year 

 at this period of the season. The only way by which I 

 can temporarily forget the weather is to go back to the 

 day when, in England, the sportsmen were " inaugurat- 

 ing " (there are worse words than that though it is not 

 pure English) the grouse season. On August 12 we 

 were on a visit to S., whose river is a few hours' steam- 

 ing from the stream upon which I was established 

 in headquarters. It was our fourth day there, and, 

 as a relief from the salmon rod, which had found out 

 the unused muscles of my arms and shoulders, I took 

 a holiday so far as to go out for once with a trout rod. 

 Itjvvas a whole-cane pattern of 10 ft. 6 in. As it was 

 already put together in the rack at the back of the 

 hotel, I borrowed it just to save the bother of fixing up 

 my own greenheart. In the tidal portion of the river 

 capital sport was sometimes to be found with the com- 

 mon trout. They are Salmo fario of the kind one often 

 catches in Norway silvery, marked with a galaxy of 

 small black spots, with a red point here and there, and 

 game to the death ; and their favourite taking time 

 in this river was when the tide was nearing low 

 water. 



On that particular date this happened pretty early, 

 and I was on the pebbly strand by eight o'clock. Our 

 friends who fish the river use small March browns, blue 

 duns, and teal and reds for such light amusement ; but 



