FRESHENED BY FROST 



ON a certain Tuesday that every reader may recall 

 we came to the river on pike-fishing bent. There 

 had been a little frost the day before just enough to 

 make the fish hungry and it was in that evening 

 that the fishing expedition had been planned. And 

 now the world was clad in deep, silent white, over 

 which a freezing wind drove a storm of snow that 

 stung like ice-needles. The metal of our fishing- 

 gear, which, we afterwards were to learn, would stick 

 to the bare skin and almost drag the skin off, now 

 chilled through the gloves and made the fingers as 

 though the veins had turned to ice. When we turned 

 into the Anglers' Rest to thaw out, the process inflicted 

 indescribable agony. Then out again into the white 

 world to the deep, black river, the only thing untamed 

 into winter livery. 



But even the liberty of the river had in a measure 

 succumbed to that sharp frost, short as it was. It 

 was caked across with a greenish grey mixture of 

 snow and water, a nap of slush sustained by the first 

 open weaving of the frost loom. The bait and lead 

 could break their way through, and then the float sat 

 on the ice, and proceeded to freeze there. When the 

 run came, the float went, not under the water, but 

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