122 DAYS STOLEN FOR SPOET 



I would not part with the excuse to be by the 

 riverside, fly rod in hand, waiting their rising midst 

 the glories of a November morning, when the sun 

 makes its fight, becomes conqueror and drives the 

 mists away, and then, before there is time to see 

 half the pictures that stand revealed, up come the 

 flies to tempt the grayling to feast so greedily as to 

 fail to see the difference between the imitation and 

 the real. To give this up for the few trout that 

 grayling displace would surely be a poor exchange. 



There was many a threat of something happen- 

 ing to prevent one or other of us going but we 

 came through our difficulties triumphantly and 

 woke up in Hampshire on that Friday morning 

 within a mile of the fishing. This distance we 

 stepped out to walk with the momentum that joyous 

 expectation gives. 



There was a mist upon the river and the adjacent 

 meadows which seemed from the long distance to 

 be a heavy weight that could neither be lifted nor 

 dispersed (would it turn to rain and rain inces- 

 santly as on our last visit, was my unspoken fear) ; 

 but, as we neared it, like many another trouble it 

 lessened, and when the sun rose above the wooded 

 heights it encouraged the little breeze that blew up 

 and athwart the stream to have its way in brushing 

 off, first roughly the great bulk, and then quite 

 cleanly the remnants of, the clinging dampness. 

 The wind then breathed with a freer breath and 

 rippled the fast-flowing water into oily wavelets on 

 which the sun played, and everything seemed glad 

 as we travelled upstream full of expectations, I 

 striding my best to keep the pace my companion 

 was making. 



