220 LINES IN PLEASANT PLACES 



in a twinkling there would be fifty or sixty yards 

 quivering at the stretch, and the old tactics had to be 

 repeated. The fear all the while was that the fish, 

 however well hooked at first, might eventually break 

 away the hold ; but I had not now to learn that in 

 such a dilemma it is always well to be as hard with 

 the fish as the tackle will bear, and the time arrived 

 when the line became short and the fish subdued, and 

 A., seeing his opportunity with the gaff, waded in 

 amongst the boulders at the very point of the island. 

 Nothing, however, could induce the fish to come into 

 the moderately slack water where gaffing would have 

 been an easy matter. He floundered about on the 

 very verge of the branch stream, and before long, 

 rather than give more line, I was forced to walk back 

 amongst the undergrowth. 



It was time the fish was out of these mutual diffi- 

 culties, and if he would not take the steel where he 

 ought to have been, we must strike him where and how 

 we could. Back amongst the bushes I could just see 

 A.'s head and bent body with the outstretched gaff. 

 As the poor fellow had missed a fish once or twice that 

 day (being as I have before said much indisposed with 

 a severe cold and a splitting headache), I was, at this 

 delay, fearful of the sequel, and observed with horror 

 his wild, scythe-like sweep with the gaff. I could feel 

 also, but too surely, that the fish had received a violent 

 blow ; but the sound of its continued splashing in the 

 water and the steady strain upon the line allowed me 

 to breathe again, and to realise that the weapon had 

 not touched the gut. A. would get very nervous if 

 you spoke to him under these circumstances, and the 

 ejaculation that would have only been natural was 

 therefore suppressed. Silently retiring a few steps 

 farther into the bushes, with tightly set lips, I could 



