CHAPTER XVIII. 



DISAPPOINTING DAYS. 



|lSAPPOINTING Days ! How well we all know them, and 

 how terribly frequent they are. Full of ardour and keen 

 as mustard, we anticipate great things, only to find that 

 another day of disappointment is to be added to the many 

 already recorded in our angling diary. And it is some- 

 times so difficult to anticipate them ; all the omens seem 

 to be propitious, and yet the fates are inexorable. 



There are days admittedly hopeless, when the river 

 side is only sought for its companionship, and for the 

 unknown possibilities of fortune ; and others that are worse than 

 hopeless, when to try to fish for salmon with a fly would be the height 

 of absurdity, as, for instance, when the river is in high spate, or so 

 full of snow brue or ice as to render your chances almost ridiculous. 

 These, in a sense, are certainly disappointing ; but it is not of them 

 that I would write, but rather of those inexplicable days when all seems 

 to be fairly propitious and yet we come home " blank." 



Fortunately, fishermen are not easily browbeaten by unkind fortune, 

 and these black letter days only serve to give a renewed zest to the 

 future, in anticipation of the more fortunate days that we all confidently 

 believe to be in store for us. . . 



o 



