222 LINES IN PLEASANT PLACES 



hired the river for ten days, we probably should never 

 have gone to the trouble of making the two or three 

 attempts we did make. There had been some fine fish 

 taken during the weeks when we were occupied in 

 sea-trout fishing. There had been one of 57 Ib. killed 

 on a spoon, and on my first visit to our newly acquired 

 fishing, a party of young gentlemen, who had taken 

 the other side of the water, were in high spirits. On 

 the lawn in front of the house there lay a fish of over 

 30 Ib., another of 29 Ib., and two smaller ones. 



The angler who had caught them naturally thought 

 that with a record of four fish weighing 96 Ibs. in a 

 day, and that his first day, too, and the fish all caught 

 with the fly, he was in for an uncommonly good thing. 

 But the river, instead of improving, afterwards got 

 worse, and to the time of our leaving the party had 

 had indifferent sport after that auspicious beginning. 

 The sight of the big fellows lying white and shapely on 

 the grass in front of the chalet taught me that I might 

 have driven up two or three hours earlier, but there 

 was still reason to suppose that there might be a 

 salmon left for me. I began by hooking and playing 

 in the first pool a small red fish of, I should say, 7 Ib., 

 which did me the honour of making a graceful twirl 

 when I had, as I supposed, tired him out ; with a flutter 

 of his tail, he sheered off with contemptuous slowness 

 under my very nose into the deeps again. An hour 

 later I got a similar fish, small and red (just under 

 7 Ib.), which did not escape. By and by, with a full- 

 sized Durham Ranger, I had an affair of the good old 

 sort ; it was a well-sustained contest after I had been 

 landed on the farther shore, terminated by the landing 

 of a bright, handsome salmon of 25 Ib. A young 

 gentleman on the same side, fishing from the boat with 

 a prawn, hooked and brought to the top, while I was 



