WESTERN WATERS 137 



My expression is different from that of the 

 farmer or the old crone : it is not one of resig- 

 nation or stolidity, but of unmistakable elation, 

 which would seem unaccountable to the ordinary 

 observer of the leaden sky, the sodden landscape, 

 and the persistent downpour. But a fisherman 

 would have no difficulty in risking a guess at 

 the correct explanation. He would recognise a 

 brother of the angle, and would rightly conjecture 

 that my thoughts were of the morrow ; that my 

 heart was swelling with the hope that springs 

 eternal in the fisherman's breast, and that I was 

 already settling provisionally where and when I 

 should begin the next day. 



I was born an angler, and from the first day 

 that I was big enough to handle a rod have 

 pursued, with varied success but unwavering 

 perseverance, every kind of fish from the stickle- 

 back to the salmon. My father still chuckles 

 over the recollection of my first big trout, a 

 splendid fellow of some three-quarters of a pound, 

 who took my worm when I was fishing for roach 

 in a little pond some quarter of a mile from the 

 house. Hearing unearthly shrieks, he rushed up 

 the hill on the wings of terror, scarcely hoping to 

 be in time to save me from a watery grave, and 

 found me executing a war-dance and war-whoops 

 of victory over my captive much to his wrath 

 at the time, but to his amusement since. As 

 the twig is bent, the tree is inclined ; and I 



