98 ■ CHATS ON ANGLING. 



Everything seems on some occasions to go unaccountably wrong. 

 The water may be in order, the fish up, and yet at the end of the day 

 you have nothing but mishaps to record, your confident expectations 

 have been rudely dissipated, and you have met with a series of 

 misfortunes. 



Perhaps on starting you find that you have left your flask or your 

 tobacco pouch lying on your mantelpiece, and imprudently have turned 

 back to secure them. That circumstance alone, in the eyes of your 

 gillie, will prove amply sufficient to give you a "disappointing day." 

 You have. already discounted your luck, and must not grumble at the 

 result. On reaching the water side you find that you have brought 

 with you the wrong box of flies, and only have with you the one you 

 had discarded overnight as containing those of a size too large. Well, 

 you must make the best of it, mount the least objectionable of those 

 at your disposal, and proceed to wade out into the stream with half 

 your confidence gone. You soon realise that your waders, which had 

 already given you warning indications of hard wear, are leaking somewhat 

 unpleasantly. After working your way half down the pool you discover 

 that your pipe is smoked out, and as you are in need of the consoling 

 influence of tobacco, you propose to refill it, proceeding to knock out 

 the ashes on the butt of your rod ; in doing so the pipe slips through 

 your fingers and disappears in the stream at your feet. It is 

 impossible to recover it, so you are pipeless, and therefore inconsolable 

 all day. 



Some disappointments are sheer ill fortune ; some we bring upon 

 ourselves. You are, for example, casting mechanically, and therefore 

 badly ; moreover, you are not watching your fly, nevertheless you get a 

 rise. You step back a yard or so, in order to be sure of getting the 

 length right for the next cast, and in so doing forget the slimy green 

 boulder that you had just negotiated on your way down. An awkward 

 struggle, in which you have to use the butt of your rod as a stick 

 to avoid an upset, does not serve to mend matters, but rather to 

 unsteady you the more. At any rate, you have escaped a real ducking 

 and are proportionately thankful. 



Then, your mental balance being somewhat upset, you cast over 

 your rising fish ; he comes up well, a good boil, but you are too 



