TROUT 127 



may still be had there ; but the angler must be 

 content to turn his back on the road and its 

 comforts, to live laborious days, and not to be 

 too critical of his night's lodging. 



The inhabitants of that remote region were 

 not all as unsophisticated as the trout. On 

 the shore of a lonely mountain lake we found 

 a solitary man living in a hut. A boat lay 

 on the strand below, and a mile off, where 

 the river left the lake, was a tempting island, 

 evidently designed by nature for an angler's 

 camp. We approached him with a request 

 for the loan of the boat, for leave to pitch our 

 tent upon the island, and for permission to 

 fish. He was not enthusiastic, but, after some 

 hours' thought, gave an apparently grudging 

 assent to our proposals, in consideration of a 

 payment of four krone (four and sixpence) a 

 day. We stayed there a fortnight, and it was 

 not until we had crossed a mountain pass that 

 we learnt from another Norwegian, that neither 

 the boat, nor the island, nor the fishing, were 

 the property of our friend. However, we were 

 pleased with our sport, and he, I presume, 

 with his windfall of krone. 



And for our part we should have been hard 



