no LINES IN PLEASANT PLACES 



all the while of the excitement of the morning and the 

 brisk quivering of the trout rod. Somehow I found 

 myself down there again in the early evening, D. accom- 

 panying me with another attack of depression. He 

 was quite right from his point of view. His master 

 had taught him if, indeed, he had not inherited the 

 doctrine that salmon are the only things worth call- 

 ing fish. Sea trout count for nothing ; brown trout 

 for less than that. Still, he pocketed his disapproval, 

 and came along with lack lustre eye. S. came down, 

 too, just as I was wading in, to see me start, and in a 

 few minutes I announced that a good fish had risen 

 short at the small Killer. This was a timely falsity, as 

 I wanted just then the opportunity of filling my pipe 

 not an easy thing to do knee-deep in water. By 

 putting your rod over your right arm, and fixing the 

 butt into your pocket, it may, however, be done ; the 

 line takes care of itself, and the flies will be below you 

 somewhere out of danger. There must have been down 

 there a lo-in. sea trout at the very lap of the water on 

 the stones perhaps it had followed the fly in from 

 the stream ; anyhow, there it was on the Killer when 

 I had lighted the pipe, and I gave it freedom, without 

 including it in the bag of the day. After the brief interval 

 I addressed myself to the false riser who had, without 

 knowing it, accommodated me in the matter of the 

 pipe. With the sense of obligation strong upon me, I 

 gave him his opportunity with delicacy and delibera- 

 tion ; he came up like an Itchen patriarch at a May- 

 fly, and I had a full ten minutes' race down the bank, 

 with heartfelt tussles at intervals that made the en- 

 gagement gloriously alive. This fish was quite worthy 

 of the gaff, being a beautiful sea trout of 5 Ib. 



The five-pounder had been hooked on the shallow, 

 and to the shallow I again devoted myself. There 



