138 SPORT IN EUROPE 



and was even able to catch one or two by simply trailing a spoon bait, 

 of course not before I had tried them with the fly. The beauty of the 

 country round encouraged me to ascend as far as Ouimperle, the home 

 of an old friend of my childhood. His lawyer happened to be with 

 him when I reached the house, and, hearing my enthusiasm about the 

 beauty of his district, he told me that the owner of a large estate in 

 the neighbourhood had authorised him to let it, and he asked if 

 I would go and look at it. There, he said, I should be within easy 

 reach of two fine rivers, the Scorff and the Ellee, formerly full of fish, 

 though nowadays the salmon were almost all taken in the nets at their 

 mouth, the rest being intercepted by the millers in the mill sluices. 

 My friend well knew my love of lonely sports, and, anxious that 

 I should take a property that would bring us together as neighbours 

 for some weeks every year, proposed that we should go then and 

 there and see the manor of Kerveean. 



An hour later we reached it, by way of a wonderful avenue of 

 four rows of beeches a hundred years old, and found the manor 

 buried in trees. It had the reputation of being haunted. The woods 

 contained, at the season of migration, great abundance of woodcock, 

 and the house, perched on a hill, was but half an hour's drive from 

 the Scorff and ElMe, which run parallel into the sea at Lorient and 

 Pouldu. My inspection of these two rivers, the information I got 

 of the ease of acquiring the local fishing rights, and my friend's 

 promise of co-operation, were all satisfactory, and that very day 

 I became the tenant of Kervegan and its lands. 



I at once got to work, and that autumn I dealt with a considerable 

 stretch on either river. I hired bailiffs, and that first season I was 



