98 AN ANGLER'S BASKET. 



If you are not accustomed to the ordinary angling inn of 

 the northern dales, you will be surprised at the simple 

 excellence of the fare, the matchless white of the napery, 

 and the absolute cleanliness and old-fashioned comfort in 

 each corner of the place. You may, indeed, in June, when 

 the country is all like a garden, sit in this quaint bay 

 window overhanging the river, and look out on a wild sea 

 of apple blossom and neighbouring dog rose, while the scent 

 of hawthorn perfumes every corner of the house. Compare 

 such a spot with the place in which many a town or city 

 man is compelled for weary months to take his mid-day 

 meal. It is a stuffy restaurant ; a waiter with a bulbous 

 nose made in a decanter, and wearing a halo of gin and 

 bitters around him as big as a circus, says " Yessirroast- 

 beefsossigerollmuttonofthejointamsangwidgepastry." You 

 haven't the slightest idea what it is, but you say you will 

 have it, and you get it and you wish later you hadn't. 



And the scenes one witnesses and the narratives one 

 sometimes hears in these angling inns. Just observe the 

 entrance and the general demeanour of the approaching 

 young man ; it is known in the village he has caught a big 

 fish, an enormous trout, a perfect demon of a trout, and, as 

 a matter of fact, it really weighs two pounds ; it is in ill- 

 condition, but there isn't a brass band in the universe can 

 provide you with as many airs as the proud possessor of 

 that attenuated fish. Of course, if you or I had caught it 

 we should have returned it as unfit to take. Oh ! certainly ; 

 without any question ; there is no doubt about it ; we have 

 done so often, and larger fish than that. 



Have I not seen an angler with a Gargantuan appetite 

 sitting calmly down to a paste-board pie, deliberately 

 brought from a neighbouring town by an inconsiderate 

 joker ? A hot potatoe inserted through the lid underneath, 

 produced the necessary appearance of heat from the little 

 hole in the upper crust. Long and manfully, with tearful 



