UP THE RIVER 279 



mazy recesses of tangled roots, and from none of 

 these retreats will they be tempted by any lure save 

 that of the foaming flood which will (but it is yet 

 afar off) bring with it life and liveliness. We look 

 across the broad flat and see as through a sheet of 

 glass clearly to the farthest corner, but not a single 

 fish can we detect, if we except a shoal or two of 

 happy minnows, basking, questing, darting, splash- 

 ing, now without an enemy. Our most careful 

 efforts are vain, our daintiest flies are useless, ignored 

 absolutely, as are the few living insects that ride 

 the stream. 



At sundown and for perhaps an hour or more 

 thereafter, a few trout dare to leave their hiding- 

 places in the depths of the pool and venture into 

 the smooth thin water at the tail or the edges of the 

 entering stream. Even in the late hours only a 

 slight reward is given to patient and careful effort ; 

 it was not always so, but then never was there such 

 a drought, rocks, whose existence was suspected by 

 a faint rippling wave on the surface, now standing 

 clearly exposed. Those adventurous trout rejoice 

 to annoy us by rising to, taking, and rejecting all 

 in the same second our choicest spinner. The water 

 here is unfriendly, unkind by day ; in the late 

 evening the reward is poor return for the sacrifice 

 involved and the irritation experienced. We must 

 fish. Let us away up the river. 



Off we go thirty miles up the river, where it is a 

 cheery streamlet, flowing along merrily in a narrower 

 channel between higher banks, so fast that only 

 here and there is a stone befouled by yellow and 

 green unloveliness. We are on the open moor, and 

 though the sun burns here quite as brightly as it 



