CHAPTER XIII 



Flies good and bad A Day on the Kennet Mac's old Brown 



FLIES are, at times, more to some folk than the 

 progeny of all else that went into the Ark with 

 Noah. They can, and do, raise fishermen to the 

 highest pinnacle of expectation and delight, and 

 then, in the twinkling of an eye, cause them to use 

 such language as leaves them little hope of of 

 well ! of catching fish. Politics, beer, and racing 

 have much to answer for, their records are bad, 

 especially politics, but flies are an easy first with 

 these. The stag is king of the forest until the 

 all-conquering midge appears, and then, without 

 fight or parley, he vacates his throne. Bulls and 

 lions, Nature's boldest beasts, get up and run when 

 their particular fly commences to serenade. Men 

 of all colours and every clime hope that there will 

 be a time and place in which flies will have no 

 share. 



A Scottish friend of mine must have a great dread 

 of these insects for when a son of his, grown tired 

 of his captures, was about to set some free from 

 their paper cage he called to him so loudly as to 

 make me jump : " Na, na, you'll no be loosing 

 them. I'll no be having the beesties in a hoose of 

 mine." 



They are by no means a modern terror, for the 

 great-grandson of Noah, no other than the mighty 



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