6 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



to blur the outline of the hooks. We never flatter 

 ourselves that the hooks are invisible, only that they 

 can be made so sketchy in appearance as to allow a 

 hungry pike to persuade himself that they are a 

 hallucination. The colour of the water being right, 

 the descendant of Walton takes no notice of the 

 grey sky and the grey land around him. 



Slowly the firmament blackens in the eye of the 

 north wind, as though the pigment had run there 

 from the other parts of a wet water-colour, and, 

 without warning to him whose eyes have been fixed 

 on his float, a fierce snow-storm is hurled at him 

 across the river. It makes no difference, or shall we 

 say that, so far from worrying the fisherman, it makes 

 him hope that this may be just the change in the 

 weather that was needed to make the fish hungry ? 

 Other sportsmen enjoy the snow equally well. Far 

 away, there is a rising howl that goes very well with 

 the shriek of the wind, and in a few minutes we 

 are aware that the hunt is coming in our direction. 

 It comes almost as swiftly as the snow-storm. We 

 are right in the track of the fox and his pursuers. 

 He is on the other side of the river and wishes to 

 cross, and we are fishing at the only bridge. There 

 is a shaking of the laurel and Reynard jumps out, 

 crosses the bridge till he is close on us, starts a little, 

 changes his stride, and whisking by on nimble legs, 

 is soon a field in front of the hounds, who have 

 checked among our recent footsteps on the other side 

 of the river. They do not catch their fox. He lives 

 to remember how he sprang from his sleeping-place, 

 on a hay-stack, right among the hounds, dodged their 

 lumbering snaps at him, raced them till a lucky 



