AN OCTOBER PIKE 331 



Along the hollow bank guarded by alder trees, 

 right across the broad reach rippled by a bit of 

 wind, in and out the deep, dark trench between 

 osier-beds, round the perch-haunted " Swan's Neck " 

 bend, swims the apparently adventurous sprat. The 

 perch are game enough to worry the tail of the 

 bait, which is not to-day guarded by a triangle, 

 but nowhere except between the osiers is there a 

 a pike that happens to be in the mood for fight or 

 feed. And when the solitary rise comes, it results 

 only in a mere foot-long jack that we gladly release 

 to grow big and fight a better battle another day. 

 But this spinning with a two-handed greenheart rod 

 is excellent practice for a far colder day than this. 

 Some claim for rowing, others for walking, others 

 for cycling, exercise that benefits the maximum 

 number of our four hundred named muscles. Spin- 

 ning, of course, includes walking, and it gives extra 

 work besides for some muscles, including the im- 

 portant ones that clothe the lumbar region, as next 

 day's stiffness abundantly shows. When we have 

 gone a mile or two, we are amply inclined to rest 

 and passively receive the benefits of a beautiful day. 



Our stream occupies a mere trench in a valley 

 that must once have been a river-bed more than 

 a mile wide. Some of the greenest meadows in 

 England stretch over the gentle slope that ends in 

 hills barely a hundred feet higher than the centre 

 of the valley. Then come snow-clad mountains, as 

 they seem, really clouds moulded and lighted in an 

 exquisite manner that extracts admiration, though 

 they are seen everywhere and every day just now. 

 The zenith is clear, fieckless blue, yet there is no 



