222 ROD AND RIVER 



of being able to attract their attention with an 

 artificial fly being infinitesimally small. I have 

 known occasions, one in particular, when, appar- 

 ently, every fish in the portion of the Test on 

 which I was fishing was thus engaged ; and this, 

 too, was during the mayfly season. It had been 

 a day of disappointment to me, for the fish had 

 been rising very short ; my basket was empty, 

 and I had lost three or four large trout, one of 

 them an historical fish which had broken every- 

 one who had previously succeeded in hooking 

 him. He lived amongst the roots of an old alder- 

 tree, and when struck invariably made for his 

 home, and by means of some two or three quick, 

 deep, double rushes snapped the gut as if it were 

 a cobweb. These tactics he employed with me. 

 I did my utmost to keep him out in the stream ; 

 but though 1 was using a double-handed rod, and 

 the gut was the best of its kind, he beat me by 

 the sheer weight of his body and the violent, 

 rapid snatches he made. Nor was this the worst 

 of my troubles. I had, while casting, placed a 

 very favourite old single-handed rod on the grass 

 behind me, it not being furnished with a spike ; 

 and as I stepped back while playing the fish, I 

 trod on it, and ruined it irretrievably. 



But to return to what I was saying. The day 

 had been bright and broiling ; at sunset the sky 

 was of a deep orange red, and the water of a 



