A DAY IN ELYSIAN FIELDS. 99 



enough to make a Chinaman a pair of breeches, 

 struggling out of the heavy black clouds just over the 

 tree tops in the west, and although drizzling rain was 

 falling, and another storm of lightning, thunder, and 

 rain was coming up from the east, the Major and 

 ' * Sarcelle " determined to risk another wetting, and 

 they got it. Profane outsiders would have called 

 them cranks, but you, my readers, know something of 

 the afflatus that inspires an angler's soul, and converts, 

 for him, splashy puddles, long, wet grass, and pouring 

 rain, into veritable Elysian fields. 



" Sarcelle," as you know, is the French for teal, 

 and teal is the smallest of the Duck tribe hence his 

 imperviousness to water but the Major has no such 

 excuse. 



They fished again, " Sarcelle " using the wet-fly 

 not at all difficult in such weather and the ' ' chuck- 

 and-chance-it " system. The Major adhered to the 

 scientific " dry-fly " plan, wherein he is a well-known 

 adept ; keeping his eye always wide awake for a rise, 

 and never casting till he saw one ; but the trout were 

 still a-tailing. After long and patient waiting the 

 Major's quick eye caught sight of an almost imper- 

 ceptible bubble under the opposite bank ; he placed 

 his fly exactly on that spot, a big trout seized it, and a 

 long and pretty battle ensued. There was a long and 

 broad belt of cut and live weeds lying in the middle of 

 the stream, and after a desperate struggle to get under 

 these weeds, the Major brought him to the top of them, 

 and then the hook came away, but the astonished trout 

 knew it not, he thought he was caught, and lay there 

 dreaming of the frying-pan for the space of about one 



